World champ tames his own tigers
By Keith Morris
 Extreme violence and even murder was a way for life for three times world kung-fu champion Tony Anthony until he met God in a Cyprus prison cell.
An audience at Norwich’s Vineyard church listened in rapt attention recently as Tony told them his amazing life story.
Half Italian, Tony was raised a Buddhist and kung-fu had been in his family for 500 years. He became a master of the art and a highly proficient combat fighter, reaching the very top by the time he was in his early twenties.
After securing three world kung-fu titles, Tony became a professional elite bodyguard, using his violent skills to protect some of the world’s richest, most powerful people, including an ambassador.
He travelled the world, but extreme violence was still an integral part of Tony’s life. “In the line of duty as a bodyguard I killed people,” said Tony. “I have broken more arms and legs than I care to remember.”
Then tragedy struck when Tony’s Swedish fiancé, Aya, was killed in a car crash. “It made me very upset with life and I felt like my heart was ripped out of me,” said Tony. “It irritated me if I saw other people being happy and I took it out on them by hitting them over and over again or even shooting them in the face.”
Following the accident, Tony left England and moved away to Cyprus. Once again he fell into sinister circles and got involved in robberies and more violence. Ultimately he was incarcerated in a Cypriot prison for three years.
Tony’s bloodthirsty story was in all the local papers when he was jailed and an Irishman called Michael Wright wrote to him in prison and asked if he could visit him.
“This man came in to my prison cell week after week and tried to tell me about Jesus Christ. But I came up with argument after argument and at one point was ready to punch him in the face,” said Tony.
But eventually what Michael said struck a chord with Tony: “I thought about my life and I said: ‘God if you are here you have to show yourself to me.’ I started to say I was sorry and then I started to cry my heart out. I was crying and begging him to forgive me. In fact I asked him to kill me because I didn’t feel that I deserved to live. That was the night God changed my life.”
Tony found his anger began to disappear as his priorities shifted and his life took a massive turn. Where previously the other inmates had respected him for his fighting abilities, now they were drawn to him in a different way.
Eventually Tony left prison and became a youth worker in a church. But tragedy was still just around the corner. Tony was involved in a car accident in the dark when he accidentally knocked an old lady off a bike and she later died.
“I felt my whole life had been ripped apart once again and I ended up in prison again sentenced to 15 months,” said Tony.
“I felt I had failed God so much and I didn’t believe he would ever use me again. I hid my Bible under my pillow until one day when my friend Darren saw it and asked me about it. Because I wouldn’t show it to him he decided that he would get his own Bible and make up his own mind about it. He read it and he also decided to become a Christian.”
“I then realised that God is a God of second chances because he loves us,” said Tony.
Today, he spends his time telling his story in churches and prisons around the world. You can read it for yourself in Tony’s book Taming the Tiger published by Authentic Lifestyle (ISBN 1860244815) priced around £6.99 and available from CLC Bookshop in Norwich on 01603 623875.
You can hear Tony's amazing story in his own words when he visited Norwich by clicking on the link above.
Nov 2005 |
