KO'd BY DRUGS, BOXER BATTLES BACK

A decade ago, Edmonton's Tony 'Bad Boy' Badea had fought his way close
to pro boxing's mountaintop.

Then, after a few setbacks in the ring, the one-time Canadian and
Commonwealth champion hurtled into the crevasse of drug and alcohol
abuse.

By December of last year, the mercury dipping to minus-18, Badea was
found lying in a ditch outside of Edmonton, stoned and drunk.

Police took him to the inner-city Hope Mission, which today still
serves as his home and where he makes sandwiches feeding hundreds not
so very different from himself.

On March 28 at the Shaw Conference Centre, Badea will return to the
ring for the first time in nearly six years.

Bad Boy Badea says he is on a mission.

"I have to spread the word," he says. "Rock bottom doesn't have to be
the last step. Faith can pull you off the ground."

And off the mat.

Like too many athletes, Badea found everything came much too easily:
money, attention, women and a never-ending supply of drugs and alcohol.

"You have a drink. You smoke a line," said Badea, 34, who defected
from Romania to Canada in 1992. "And because you feel like a million
bucks you do another line and have another drink.

"And the girl next to you, she is doing lines too, and she is only
with you because you can get her the coke. It's so easy, so simple to
lose your life."

Once ranked sixth in the world by the World Boxing Council, Badea
isn't just coming back from the past, he's coming back from hell,
vowing that with every punch he throws, he'll show others they can do
the same.