In 1996, Bobby was invited for an interview on a local cable T.V. talk show, in Saugus, Massachusettes. The show’s host, Alan James, an aspiring media personality, brought attention to various people doing interesting things on the North Shore, an area close to Boston. On this episode, he chose Bobby Tomasello as his guest.

 It was a low budget production, undertaken by mostly local broadcasting students, but interesting to observe  Bobby, who was natural in front of the camera. He already had an instinct  for promotion, and the T.V. appearance was another chance for him to work it through, step by step, as his career began to take shape. The interview had an innocent flow, as the amiable interviewer, Alan James, sometimes half kidding, queried a more serious, articulate Robert, who was 19  at the time.

   The following is a transcript of the broadcast:  

(Cheezy muzak plays in the background as the name of the show beams across the T.V. screen. The camera zooms in on the two people seated)

      “Welcome back to “North Shore at Night”. I’m Allen James, your host, and, of course, North Shore at Night is about local people, events, and things happening in and around the North Shore, some of them here, in your own back yard, like, from Saugus, today, we have Bobby Tomasello, who is a local boxer, an amateur boxer; and we’re gonna talk a little about his fights in the boxing world and as he tries to make it in the professional boxing rings and, uh, we’ll see how his career is progressing thus far. So Bobby, thanks for being on the show.”

“Thanks for having me.”

“And, uh, might as well take a little sip here” (drinks from cup) “ahh, bio-hazardous waste, great stuff. (puts down cup and sighs) “So, anyway, again, thanks for being on the show. So, you’re a Saugus resident.

“Yes”

“Have you lived in Saugus all your life?

“Yeah, lived here all my life.”

 “And now you’re an amateur boxer?”

    “I represented the region which covers New Jersey, New York, upstate New York, New England, and the whole Northeast region, and had, pretty much, the best amateurs in the country. We all had to qualify. We had to win 3 tournaments to get there. So everyone there was, pretty much, top flight. They all had to win their way to get there.”

  “So everyone had to start off somewhere, in order to be the regional representative?”

      “That’s right.” Started off basically, at the New England championships, held in Somerville, back in November. Had to win that. Then had to qualify-had to go down to Connecticutt, and fight the winner down there, who represented that area down there, Connecticutt, and some from New York, and I won there, on a walk, there was no one my weight, and, I just won. I represent New England.”

  “So, if there’s no-one your weight, you-“

      “Right, you just keep moving ahead.” Basically you keep moving. That was in December. Then I qualified for the regionals. That was in Lake Placid. The winner of that went on to Colorado. That was in January. It was three days and I had to fight- it was pretty grueling. I had to fight two fights and twelve hours separated them.

   “Wow”

      “I had to fight a kid fromNew York City and, a fighter from upper state,New York, at ten in the morning, the next morning. Well, they wanted to get us home cause it was the Super Bowl, and they wanted us out early.”

   “Oh, I see.”  And watch the game”

     “So they wanted us up at six and weigh in at seven, so, it was get on with it. It was really quite an experience.”

       “So how did your career start as a boxer? Was it something you always wanted to do, as a kid?

   “It’s something I feel I was somewhat destined to do. My Father was a boxer. When I was young he always had me doing things a boxer would do. He’d take me to the woods with him, have me chop wood, he’d take me to the gym with him. He was a great amateur fighter. He trains me now. He just brought me up, and he just let me do my thing, and he never pushed me into anything, but I just had my first amateur fight, in 1991. So, I’ve been fighting competitively for about six and a half years. But I’ve always been involved in sports, I’ve always been around gyms and fighters, and rings, and boxing shows.”

  “That was basically your upbringing then.”

     “Basically, it was. I never really had–, well, I guess you could say– maybe a social life. Well, I did, but it was always, well, it’s getting late.(looks at watch) Get to bed, Got a fight coming up. You know, my way of life was geared toward boxing.”

  “So when you’re out with your friends, it was like, come on spar with me.”

    “Even my girl friend; it’s getting late, you know, and she wants me to have some dessert and I can’t, it’s getting late. These are little things.”

  “And I gotta weigh in, right?”

   “Right, and she puts up with a lot, and she boxes too.” I brought her in.”

        “Really.”

“She goes up to the gym. Women’s boxing is getting more popular these days. She goes to the gym and, she’s good, she’s talented. She could really do something. I don’t want her to–“

  “Does she clean your clock, though?”

  Yeah, she’s– I’ve sparred with her a few times and she caught me good. She’s pretty strong. She boxes with my Father a lot, practice. But I really don’t want her to fight. You know, I just don’t want to see her get banged up and hit. It’s a tough racket, and, let me do it, but, do something else.”

  “Your weight now, you’re a featherweight class?”

        “My maximum weight would be about 126.”

        “And what are you now?”

              “Right now I’m about 125”

               “You’re a pound shy there.”

                  “Right, in the amateurs it’s 125, right on the money. In the pros, it’s 126, maybe 127.”

          “I’m 115, myself, so.”

                “I was that way, one time, a couple of years ago.”

   ”On the other end, what’s the lowest weight you can be? Is featherweight the lightest class?”

   “No, it’s not. In the pros or in the amateurs they don’t go so much by numbers. They go by straw weight. They go by fly weight. A straw weight is anywhere from about 104 pounds. Fly weight’s about 112, Bantam, 119, under or over a couple of pounds. Then there’s featherweight. Now there are all the different divisions: Junior featherweight, Super featherweight. It gets too confusing.

  “I’m Super Featherweight.”

      “And they have different titles for each different weight class. It’s good because it gives you a real good opportunity to win a title, because there are so many different titles.”

  “So it gives everybody a shot.”

    “That’s right.”

  “So, you started off in 1991 with your first fight. And that was amateur as well?”

  “Yes, that was amateur. That was in 1991, December. That was basically a prep fight for the Golden Gloves, which was in January. I had the fight in December, I won the fight, probably my toughest fight, well, not my toughest fight, but one of my toughest fights, to this day. And that just got me ready for the Golden Gloves which I fought in 1992.”

  “So how many fights, offhand, would you say you’ve fought.”

  “That I’ve fought—25”

“And how many were wins?”

 “22– and–3”

  Really, wow!”

“Yeah, I’ve done pretty well. “The other 3 losses were in National competition.”

“So you’re kicking some butt.”

  “I’m trying.”

 “Now, a workout, doing boxing; what does that entail? It’s obviously very vigorous

  “It depends on the mood.” Some days I’m not in the mood to kill myself. It’s a basic warm-up. If I’m gonna spar, they have sparring at the gym I’ll just do some basic shadow boxing, and I’ll do that, a little sparring. Depending on how hot it is, I might drop on the heavy bag or on the jump rope. It’s basically how my body feels. My Father or my trainer, Norman Stone, will tell me, drop on the heavy bag, and you know, sometimes I have no choice. But I do it for discipline reasons, to better myself, so it’s good.”

 “And the diet. I guess there’s a lot of drinking egg yokes, and that sort of thing?”

  “No, I’ll pass on the egg yokes.” It’s good. I basically eat what I want. I eat a lot of fish and I eat a lot of red meat. They say don’t eat red meat but I really believe in it. Yeah, I eat a lot of fish. I have my Burger King binges too. Have to keep my moral up. The day after a fight, I go right to the Burger King.

 “To celebrate, that you’ve won.”

   “Exactly.”

        “So, the competition in Colorado, how was that?”

  It was so– it’s really hard to explain, so many different fighters, 250 fighters, 3 rings going on at once, hard core amateur boxing to the max, except for the Olympics, of course. I did good the first night. I beat a kid fromTexas. The second night I fought a guy from Hawaai and I thought I had clearly won the fight, but, I was moving backwards in the fight, and the amateur judges decided, for some reason, I was losing the fight just because I was moving backwards.”

  “You were physically moving backwards?”

   “I was moving backwards and he was moving forwards. He was a little guy, a lot of muscle, but, as far as I could see and feel he never did anything to really win the fight. He had me moving back but I was effectively moving back. I’d hit him with good punches and then move back and basically I out boxed him. I lost a 2-2 split and I was very shocked. And a lot of people were very shocked. But I still placed 5^th in my weight class in the country and it was just great to be out there. I had a lot working against me, the altitude, for one thing. I boxed one round and it felt like I went three, so it was really a struggle.”

  The air was thinner?”

  “Right, the air was thinner, and the body got really tired. And I was fighting with a sprained thumb that I’d gotten the night before. And he didn’t even have to fight the night before. He got a walk over.”

  “Oh, the walk over. Another walk over!” Listen, can you find out the other guy’s weight ahead of time and quickly lose some weight so you can walk cause there’s no one in your class; can you cheat like that?”

   “In Boxing, anything’s possible.” In the amateurs, especially in Colorado, it’s really strict. I was weighing in, that morning at 125; everything is digital. If I were to weigh in at 125.08, I would have to lose that weight before I could see the doctor and go on to fight.”

 “So it’s very precise, down to the tenths?”

     “Very strict.” So it’s good for safety. That’s why they do it. Amateurs is based upon safety. It’s not so much like that in the pros though. In the amateurs, they try to make it  more of a sport, whereas, in the Pros, it’s much more of a business, and that’s the difference, basically.

        “There’s more pummeling in the Pros.”

“Right, there’s no headgear, sometimes smaller gloves. And sometimes you have to fight a guy who’s a little heavier then you.”

  “So you’re looking to get into the Pros now.”

   “Right, I’ve been saying that for 2 years now. And, now, I’m really feeling is the time. I’m really hoping something  May or June would be nice. Start with the 4 rounders.  I have a lot of good people behind me so, and I feel confident and I feel ready for this. It’s a big step. I have my Father, of course, with me every day. We do our training every day, at home, right here in Saugus. I’m working on some new things, trying to develop a Pro style.

  “How do you go, basically, from the Amateurs, and break into the Pros?”

  “It’s good to have someone represent you, that has watched you, someone who’s seen you , that wants to work with you.”

  “Someone like Don King?”

“He’s a little extreme, Don King. Right, someone to that effect.”
“Someone with a shorter haircut.”

“It’s good to have people behind you that know things and that have a few dollars, that can put into you, to invest in you. You’re like a race horse, basically. If they want to invest in something, they get a certain percentage. But they’re willing to get you on some good cards, at big fights. Fights like that can get you under, maybe get you a little T.V. exposure, that can bring you up. I have a gentleman who now, has some interest in me, Tony Cardinale, a criminal lawyer, in Boston. And he’s been around and he likes some of what I have to offer, I believe. I hope he does, anyway.”

“So he’s actually seen you fight?”

“He’s seen me on fight on tape and, from what he’s heard from my trainer. He was away from the sport for awhile but now he’s back. He wants to do an 8 or 10 fight deal with me. I fight every 5 weeks, which is a lot! Fight every 5 weeks, for 8 fights, get X amount of money, work out a deal, so, hopefully that will come into effect.”

“So, eventually, are you guaranteed to go up against someone like Mike Tyson, someone like that, along those lines?”

” In my weight class it’s very tough for me at 125 pounds. There was no-one in the ring at 125 pounds. The only guys I know, 3 guys at 125 pounds, all 3 of them ranked high and were very good. There’s not that many guys, but the one’s there are fight very good, so you have to really stand out. You have to be a stand out. Tony Cardinale, I understand, has been willing to send guys in at that weight class, sending them over here from New York, Saint Louis, Philadelphia, New Jersey. You know, paying their purse, paying me, and that’s how I’m gonna get fights.”

“So you show a little bit of showmanship. Maybe like a robe with a little sparkles on it, something like that with your name emblazoned all over it.”

” Yeah, me and my Father, thinking of some names we can use, thinking of things. It’s fun. It’s fun. It’s a business though”

“O.K. I’ve got a name for you.”

“Go ahead”

“Bobby- “the Basher”- Tomasello. What do you think about that?”

“Yeah O.K., the Basher. It’s definitely something I’m gonna put in my mind”
I’d like to use Benson. My real name is Bobby Benson. It’s sort of mixed up. I grew up Bobby Benson, but my Father, when he fought, he always used Tomasello, Tomasello, Tomasello. It’s my Grandmother’s maiden name, his Mother’s last name. He always used that because he didn’t like, for some reason, the name Benson. It just didn’t sound right.”
“Then there’s that actor, Robbie Benson, and you don’t want to get confused with him. I ‘v never seen him fight, but that might happen and you don’t want that going on.
” We were thinking, maybe, Bobby Benson Tomasello, but this gentleman, Tony Cardinale, he’s full blooded Italian and he likes Tomasello. He like’s the sound of it so, we’re gonna have to work around it, I guess.”

“That sounds O.K. It sounds like you’re really on your way to what you really want to do.”

“I feel like I am. I just feel like I have to keep my head on straight, keep training, and hopefully the best will come.”

“Alright. Well, we wish you a lot of luck, but, there’s just one more thing. There’s some people I want to beat up. What’s a good sucker punch I could use?”

“No sucker punch because, if you’re gonna do it, do it legal. Go over to the gym. Put some gloves on.”

“Isn’t there one shot, though, that I could use, that could knock someone down, right out, before they had a chance to do anything?”

“Well, it all depends.”

“A special head shot or something?”
“Maybe a right hand or something like that, maybe? Tell him to look up in the sky and give it to him? “

“I don’t know, I mean……”

“All right, well, you know, we’ll talk a little bit about this, Bobby, and see if you can give me a good sucker punch, something I can use, to beat up all the kids who picked on me in school when I was little. So, Bobby, thank you for being on the show. It was great, and (home viewers), we’ll be right back with more of “North Shore Tonight” right after this so, stay right there. Don’t go away!”

Music plays as the camera pulls back and the words appear on the left side of screen: “North Shore at Night.” The host begins to mimic sparring with his guest. Bobby puts up his dukes a second, and then waves Him away. All in fun.