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Firestone Tournament of Champions


The PBA Tournament of Champions is one of the four major PBA (Professional Bowlers Association) bowling events. The inaugural event, held by the PBA in 1962, featured all 25 PBA Tour title-holders to date, and was won by PBA Hall of Famer Joe Joseph,[3] who had qualified for the tournament only four events prior. In 1965, the tournament featured all champions since the 1962 event, before officially becoming an annual event in 1966 (at that time featuring the most recent 48 tour champions). From 1965 to 1993, Firestone Tire sponsored the Tournament of Champions. From 1965 until 1994, the tournament was contested at Riviera Lanes (now AMF Riviera Lanes) in Fairlawn, Ohio near the long-time Firestone World Headquarters in Akron, Ohio. In a notable opening match at the 1967 Tournament of Champions finals, Jack Biondolillo rolled the first-ever nationally televised 300 game. Oddly, Biondolillo would only tally a 188 score in his next match (a victory), before being eliminated in his third match with a 172 score. Biondolillo's feat was not matched until 2015, when Sean Rash rolled the TOC's second televised perfect game in the second match of the stepladder finals. The tournament has also seen a pair of televised 299 games, by Don Johnson (1970) and Mika Koivuniemi (2011). The 2011 event also featured the lowest-ever game bowled in a nationally televised PBA event as well as the largest pin differential in a PBA match, when Koivuniemi defeated Tom Daugherty in the semifinals, 299–100.


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