Toughman

The Toughman Contest, founded in 1979 in Bay City, Michigan by boxing promoter Art Dore, is a chance for the novice amateur fighters (those with no more than 5 sanctioned wins in the past 5 years) to test themselves in the ring

Using standard boxing rules, 16 oz. gloves, headgear,and 3 rounds of 1 minute with a 45-second rest period, The Original Toughman Contest plays across the US in between 75 and 100 cities each year and culminates with the World Championship, which in 2008 was held at Sam's Town Casino in Tunica, Mississippi.

Tournaments feature the local residents of a particular city (generally, participants must live within 100–150 mile radius of where the event is to be held) who are at least 18 years of age, pass a standard boxing physical, and meet any other requirements of the State's Boxing Commissions' regulations, and also sign a waiver freeing the parent company from liability. Some states, like Florida and Missouri do not sanction Toughman but do license mixed martial arts, an event many people confuse with the Original Toughman Contest.

The Original Toughman Contest is often mistaken with other elimination tournaments and therefore bears media brunt for contests which illegally use the trademarked name or derivatives of it. Toughman holds events only in states that have rules or state code permitting the format.

Toughman made Art Dore a celebrity and generated a Twentieth Century Fox movie called Tough Enough which starred Dennis Quaid and was about Dore and the boxing phenomenon he conceived after finding the crowds wanted to see ordinary people fight. Toughman alumni include Mr. T; Tommy Morrison; Eric "Butterbean" Esch; and from the fall of 2006, the winner of the "Contender Television Series," the former Lawton, OK Toughman Contest Champion, Grady "Bad Boy" Brewer.In 1983 Macon Georgia was surprised by a lightweight named Glynn Eubanks, Among them is also former Maine State Representative Chris Greeley, who fought in 1996, and who also completed his 8th year in the Maine House of Representatives in 2010. Mike Raver the 1993 Columbus Ohio Toughman. Eric "Chicago" Herrholz the 1992 Houston Ship Channel Toughman "Stevedores vs Longshoremen".

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