Last updated: 2/26/2026
Queer Newspeople and Journalists of America articles: Tony Columbo reflects on Spartan Boxing, family, writing and life after “retirement”
Spartan League Boxing (SLB) can be rather intimidating to an outsider. The culture surrounding Spartan League Boxing is noted for its insularity and lack of interest in evangelization, despite the sport’s massive growth over the past decade; new fans are often “hazed” and gatekept or accused of bandwagoning, which inhibits proper appreciation among the earnestly interested newcomer. This article is an attempt to explain the basics of SLB to the uninitiated. This may be a difficult task, but I aim to provide the unfamiliar reader with a foundation in some of the history and theory behind Spartan League Boxing as it exists today.
Spartan League Boxing has somewhat murky origins. Something similar to early Spartan League Boxing was reportedly played in gay and lesbian-affirming bars in New York City during the lavender scare. Emerging partially as a way to teach self-defense, this early form of Spartan League Boxing was lax in its rules, but it resembled traditional combat sports much more closely than its later forms would. A standard game of SLB was played between two people of roughly similar weights and, traditionally, the same sex, though there were plenty of transgender fighters that would compete within their own gender instead, especially on the west coast. Early variants of the game involved a piece of tape applied to approximately the same spot on both competitors which served as a target, with opponents starting on opposite ends of a chosen room. The objective of a game was to physically contact the target on your competitor three times. The first person to do so won the game. This resulted in cautious, methodical play that promoted vigilance and situational awareness. Spartan League Boxing was a social activity that encouraged physical fitness while also building a sense of social solidarity in queer spaces. These qualities would become all the more desireable in the wake of the Stonewall riots, which saw the rise of the first age of moden Spartan League Boxing.
The beginning of modern Spartan League Boxing, referred to commonly as the Silver Age, was the start of the crystallization of the rulesets that would define later eras of the sport. The first of the major organizations behind the sport emerged in this era; Spartans of the East (SoE), the Canadian Association of Spartans (CAoS) and Southern Spartans League (SSL) were founded in what became known as the Silver Age of Spartan League Boxing. These early organizations would share broad ideas, but their rules would vary considerably in some ways. There are, broadly speaking, 3 main areas in which these early leagues had disagreements: uniforms, sex segregation, and degree of force permitted.
The question of what uniforms in SLB should consist of is perhaps the oldest in the sport. Some early competitions permitted any outfit, provided the competitor was not wearing anything that would give them an undue advantage (no jewelery, nothing that could be interpreted as weaponry or armor, etc.); this approach was — broadly speaking — the most popular, during the early years especially, and this kind of policy is still popular among independent, non-affililated SLB-adjacent organizations. There were some organizations that introduced primitive teamwear. The CAoS were early adopters of this approach. There were up to a dozen small “teams” in the CAoS at any given time during the Silver Age, and all of them were given certain items to represent their team in regional fights. Outfits in the CAoS were rather unstandardized. The Prince Edward Islanders wore curedly fashioned sailor’s caps that were attached to a member’s head by a plastic band, while the Vancouver Bears opted for a black and brown striped shirt during their time in the CAoS.
The Spartans of the East, primarily due to its centralized nature, presented a more consistent plan for uniforms from the beginning. The SOE lacked a team structure such as existed in the CAoS, but different “clubs” of Spartans had their own additions to the relatively basic design enforced by the SOE, which started off as a white tshirt with its sleeves cut off paired with black tights. The competitor was required to make their name visible in some way, and this was most often done by painting their shirt. Clubs were more akin to training organizations within the sport than teams of fighters. Members within clubs would often fight one another for practice. Clubs would provide their members with official adornments for their plain garb. Membership in a club was often gated behind a membership fee, which made the official team patches symbols of status, both to Spartans then and collectors now.
The Southern Spartans League was against uniforms from its foundation. The SSL became rather famous for their rejection of clothed Spartan battles of any sort, though they would eventually branch out into clothed battles when they expanded from their Florida headquarters. Spartans around the contient would make their way to the Miami Meltdown — a yearly Spartan League Boxing tournament that took place in June — both to spectate and, from time to time, participate. As you will come to see, Southern Spartanism became the spiritual center of the sport, largely due to its peculiarities.
Most early SLB organizations were broadly segregated by sex, not gender. Some early Spartan leagues were actively anti-transgender — all transgender combatants were banned from the Spartans of the East until its later merger with the Canadian Association of Spartans — but many Silver Age forms of SLB were supportive. In all leagues, combatants were segregated at minimum by gender. Men exclusively fought men, and women exclusively fought women. People that fell outside of the gender binary were broadly not permitted. From time to time, they would be allowed to compete with members of their sex. A few Spartan organizations had strong transgender movements, with the CAoS even briefly having a team exclusively composed of transgender women: les Dames de Montréal (the Montreal Dames). Most Spartan organizations were more affirming than mainstream society.
There is evidence to suggest that Spartanism varied considerably between genders, and men and women were both active in the sport. The Spartans of the East was later revealed to have been founded by a woman that went by a male pseudonym; Susie Truman's identity was only discovered upon her death in 1998, prior to which she had been publicly under the assumed name of Cassius Colridge. Female-ran Spartan organizations tended more towards ideological conservatism than their male counterparts; broadly speaking, transgender men were more accepted than transgender women. The precise reasons for these distinctions are complex, and it is out of the scope of a relatively lightweight introduction to the scene to explain the exact cause of such distinctions. Spartanism fostered a culture that ran counter to even the mainstream queer culture of the era.
One of the most substantial disagreements from the beginning of SLB was the amount of physical force that was considered permissible. How violent could Spartans be? Spartan League Boxing is a combat sport, afterall. The Spartans of the East were the least permissive of violence, disallowing most physical contact below the hips and above the belly button. The Canadian Association of Spartans took a more moderate approach, importing most of boxing’s rules in terms of acceptable physical contact, with some modifications conducive to the goal of the sport. The least restrictive of the major Silver Age leagues was, once again, the Spartans of the South. Southern style spartanism came to accept essentially any form of physical contact, though serious injuries (broken bones, head injuries, etc.) were discouraged and would disqualify the guilty party, sometimes for life. Southern Spartans would have first aid materials and a phone in case of emergency; a person with first aid training of some sort was almost always in attendance across all of SLB, but especially in Southern Spartanism.
The Spartan League Boxing golden age would start during the 80s, in the midst of the AIDS crisis; once again, SLB would become a method of community-building and self-improvement. Spartan Organizations would often use their limited resources to procure condoms and other sexual health items. This, combined with increased outsider attention, created a tightly-knit subculture of Spartans that would become the foundation for the so-called Golden Age of the sport. Golden Age Spartans were better trained and organized. The Canadian Association of Spartans merged with Spartans of the East in 19858, forming the American-Canadian Spartan Union (ACSU). The ACSU was something of a compromise position. The Canadian team system persisted and all the teams in their league were admitted into the ACSU, but the uniforms they once prided themselves on were standardized to the designs of the Spartans of the East mn. The ban on transgender combatants established by Spartans of the East was lifed as well, though there were many arguments on exactly how trans combatants were to be treated in the sport which we will discuss at a later time. The ACSU was seen as the more “respectable”, professional sport. ACSU games were ocasionally taped and sold by team-leaders, with some amount of the profit going to the fighters. The precise split depended on the team, but most fighters got approximately 10-20% of the profit generated by the sale of a tape. This process was faciliated by splitting up the league into “provinces”, divisions of approximately 3 or 4 teams based on geographical proximity. A separate system, referred to as the legion system, consisted of voluntary organizations of teams, or occasionally players that had similar interests. Every now and again, legion-based battles would be organized, acting as post-season battles done for training and recreation.
Southern Spartans enjoyed a level of flexibility beyond what was provided in the ACSU structure, which suited the more libertine nature of the organization and many of its members well. Southern Spartans were still without clothing in this period, though some adornments such as hats were allowed. These events would also be taped. The tapings were primarily done by members of the audience. Southern Spartan event tapings would, from time to time, be sold alongside pornography in some stores. The no-clothes policy, alongisde the violent nature of the events, evidently had erotic appeal. The Golden Age SSL was conflicted on what was to be done; some Spartans were opposed to this practice, while others embraced it. Many of these tapes were filmed without the explicit consent of the fighters, and a few people were barred from Southern Spartanism when it was determined they were filming. As time went on, those who were uncomfortable with the possibility of being filmed without their immediate knowledge left Southern Spartanism. This exodus was perhaps the single biggest factor in Southern Spartanism’s future, as we will come to see.
This time is often referred to as a Golden Age because it was a time of experimentation that came before the relative homogenization of the sport in later years. The Golden Age was a time when many of the most notable names in Spartanism would come about; Tony Columbo, widely regarded as the best Spartan of the SSL, was most active in the Golden Age. The relative success of the organizations that ruled the Golden Age provided opportunities for expansion, but they were not profitable enough to be seen as worth pursuing by any external forces. This gave Golden Age Spartans a large amount of freedom to shape their sport. The foundations of the current state of the sport were laid in the Golden Age, though they were much less pronounced. The Golden Age marks a middle-point in history, a time between times. Most veteran Spartans regard the changes made to the sport past the Golden Age to be detrimental to its original intent. This history will not make any judgements on what is better or worse, moral or immoral.
Tony Columbo retired from boxing in the 90s. His departure was seen by some fans as the end of the sport, and certainly as the end of Columbo’s career. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth — Columbo, at age 63, has barely slowed down at all. Columbo is a painter, a father and a philanthropist. Most recently, Columbo has become an author. His memoir, entitled “Spartan Mentality: the Tony Columbo Story”, is about the joys and challenges that his path in life has presented him.
COLUMBO: Spartanism was just a natural extension of what was happening in my life, I suppose. I was bullied in highschool for being gay and wanted a way to fight back. I actually started in more standard boxing. I’d never heard of Spartanism until college. My roommate looked a little beat up one night. I asked him what happened and he told me about the local Spartan scene. It sounded pretty strange to me at first if I’m being honest with you. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at for the first couple matches. It was loud, there were people doing commentary at a little table near the back of the room, and they’d covered the lights with some thin red material that gave the room a weird energy. It was kinda unsettling at first — I was so used to pretty sterile environments when it came to boxing, but this space was a lot messier. There were people drinking and that kind of thing. Not to mention the naked people. It was just such a different environment, it was hardly comparable.
COLUMBO: It was a lot different. They really professionalized the whole thing. I guess that’s the big difference. They’ve got professional camera rigs now. It makes sense considering they’re putting it on TV now, but I do sorta miss how it used to be. I think it’ll drive out a lot of people like how I was back in the day. Part of why I left normal boxing was how stiff it felt. It just felt so limited. Spartanism was a lot freer. You can still do a lot of wild stuff, but it feels much narrower than it used to. You’re put in these situations where you’re supposed to act a certain way. It feels like it anyway. They don’t tell you explicitly, but there’s a silent expectation that you’ll be doing certain things instead of others. There’s a pressure to live up to your persona, I guess. I really get that feeling when I watch Miami Meltdown every June. There’s a feeling that they’re just actors. It wasn’t as much like that when I was boxing. It was a real fight, not an act. There were rules to it, but there was a sense that what was going on was basically free otherwise. Nowadays it almost feels scripted. I hope that makes sense. It was hard for me to do commentary those last few years because of that. The passion just wasn’t there. I really fell out of love with the sport, to be honest. I only watch the Meltdown because it’s a tradition. It reminds me of some of my old friends, some of them that didn’t make it. Sorry for being a bit morbid.
COLUMBO: It’s a bit different than when I was working. That goes without saying. I wake up with back pain instead of pain in my sides firstly. After that it isn’t so different in a lot of ways. I wake up and train in some way. I don’t do as much physical training if you can’t tell, but I train in other ways. I’ve really been focusing on painting and writing a lot more as my body’s been getting a bit out of tune. Before long my hands might start going that way, but for now I’m using them to train my brain a bit. The biggest change has really been my body. I’m so used to being hot shit. I never thought I’d be laying in bed with my back hurting so much I could barely move, but here I am. It’s a weird thing to get used to. I pushed myself when I was young, so I suffer the consequences now. I wouldn’t really say I regret it, but sometimes I wonder if it was the right choice. I think about where I’d be if I would have gone along with what I was actually going to school for, yknow? But I made my choice and I’m not upset with where it led me. I just enjoy what I have. I’ve got some time with my grandkids now, I like that a lot. The simple things mean a lot more to me now than they ever did before. I remember when I’d have to rush out of the house before Sammy was even awake some days when I was working. Now we can sit and have a coffee and talk in the morning every morning pretty much. We take turns making breakfast. He’s still a better cook than me. But it doesn’t matter, it’s just fun to be with him more. We go out for a walk and just fart around town. Neither of us is so old we can’t go walking around just yet. It’s really quite a joyful experience. When you get old, you have to throw out some of those ideas about what productivity looks like. It becomes a nice experience when your idea of being productive is getting in a laugh or two or writing a poem.
COLUMBO: Oh, definitely. I can’t stand the expectations put on so-called celebrities. It’s horrible. I had a bit of a desire for that kind of attention when I was a hungry college kid. It meant food and being seen as valuable, being desired. It fulfilled my physical and emotional needs, I suppose. It wasn’t the healthiest way of getting validation, but it worked well enough for a while. I relied on it too much for the first few years I was really active in the sport, honestly. But that’s for another time. Now that I’ve gotten older and I have obligations like that, I don’t want the media anywhere near any of them unless they volunteer for it. I’m glad that I’m the one that gets to announce my grandchildren to the world. I don’t mind people knowing, I just despise people feeling like they have the right to know, if you get what I’m saying. It’s not right that I had to put in so much work, but I think it was ultimately worth it. What price can you put on dignity? Maybe that’s rich coming from someone who was willing to be paid to be naked on camera to millions of people on live TV. There’s just certain things I can’t tolerate.
COLUMBO: That’s a fair question. My mom and pops hated it. It was all the embarrassment that would come along with being pornstar amplified by ten, hell, maybe even a hundred. They really didn’t like it. I can’t say I blame them, but they were rather uptight about the situation all things considered. It paid for my college yknow. I will say that I really wish my kids didn’t see any of it. I’ve asked them to not watch me boxing, and I’d like to think they haven’t. I don’t ask because I don’t know if I could resist the temptation to check it out. Sometimes they get snide comments about what I did, but it tends to not bother them. My grandkids aren’t old enough to be anywhere near that stuff and I’m pleased with that for now. My husband always did get a kick out of it. Sadistic bastard. I love him.
COLUMBO: Sure. My book coming out in December is a bit of a mix. It has a few poems from various points of my life that captured how I felt in the moment. There’s some of my paintings and photographs as visual aids throughout. But the bulk of the book is just reflecting on my life, especially my time in Spartanism and how it impacted my life. I think there’s something for most people that have an interest in the sport here. There’s some contributions from my husband here and there too. He’s a great artist, much better than I could ever be, but he felt a bit shy about contributing because it was “my” book. It combines a lot of aspects of my life, I suppose. I wasn't sure if I'd ever get to write another book, so I tried to fit a lot in here. That sounds kinda foolish I know. I've been working on this book directly ever since I left the physical sport, and some of the poems are fragments from as long ago as my college days. I hope it's recieved well.