Mat Freed, Post-Gazette photos Joe Mesi is held back after knocking out George Linberger at the Mountaineer Racetrack & Casino last night in Chester, W.Va. Click photo for larger image.
	Tommy Morrison fights John Castle last night at the Mountaineer Racetrack & Casino. Click photo for larger image.

CHESTER, W.Va. -- The comebacks were a knockout last night, short if not exactly the sweetest of their interrupted careers in this science.

A couple of old-pro pugs on a long, dank trail they hope will take them back to heavyweight contention made pit stops last night at Mountaineer Race Track & Gaming Casino, and Tommy Morrison, 38, and Joe Mesi, 33, each required mere seconds to win.

Morrison, the former World Boxing Organization and International Boxing Council heavyweight champion ("my career before") who last fought Nov. 3, 1996, as a result of testing positive for HIV, knocked out rent-a-body foe John Castle, 35, late in the second round of a scheduled four.

"If you haven't played golf in 11 years," asked Morrison, 38, "do you think you'd get a hole in one" right away?

Mesi, who last fought March 13, 2004, before a brain bleed derailed his license and prohibited him from a gym let alone a ring for two years, scored a pair of knockdowns in the first round of what was scheduled for a 10-round match against George Linberger, 40.

"I want people to know I'm conditioned, I've got my speed back, I've got my strength," said Mesi, 33, whose friends and family from Buffalo, N.Y., made up most of the crowd of roughly 2,000 for this co-feature fight on a card televised by Versus Network (the former Outdoor Life Network). "Am I 100 percent? No. But I'm certainly on my way. I'm starting to feel like the old Joe Mesi."

Also on the card, Rankin super featherweight Monty Meza-Clay (23-2) won in a six-round decision, and Aliquippa featherweight Verquan Kimbrough (17-1-1) got the same kind of decision in a Versus-televised match, though a controversial one that elicited boos from a home crowd. In the main event, Humberto Soto won the super-featherweight Continental championship of the International Boxing Council with a nasty knockout of Humberto Toledo at 1:56 of the third round.

WBO and IBC weren't the old initials du jour for Morrison, but rather HIV. West Virginia Boxing Commission chairman Steve Allred, with Morrison's approval, produced faxed records of blood tests performed independently and for the commission, each in the previous 16 days. Both produced negatives, including one from Feb. 14 testing for antigens and polymerase chain reaction -- considered the most reliable examination for HIV. However, it remains possible that, despite Morrison's assertions his 1996 tests were false positives due to steroid usage, he could have suppressed the virus with medication to the point where he tests negative. He admitted to New York's Daily News and Newsday yesterday that he took HIV medication for at least the 14 months he spent in prison on drugs and weapons charges.

From a dark decade, Morrison emerged last night to something of a familiar scene: the theme from "Rocky" blaring, cameras taping, ring announcer Michael Buffer reading aloud his bio. In his first round in 10 years and 111 days, he ducked, took a left to the chin early and appeared dazed by a punch late, Castle winning the round. Morrison unleashed a left that floored Castle and ended the fight at 1:49 of the second.

Morrison (47-3-1) dropped to his knees and raised his gloves. He scored the triumph a 6¹/₂ on a 10 scale.

"I think I got a little lazy," said Morrison, who aims to expedite his comeback with two April fights. "I got tagged with a couple of rights there. I was able to come back from it. I was able to relax. The second round, he started lowering his hands, and I knew it was a matter of time."

"I never saw it," said Castle, 35, of Indianapolis (4-3), who was similarly knocked out the last two times he fought -- back in 2005. "I thought it was just the end of the round. I didn't know what happened."

Castle only agreed to fight Morrison if he could personally review a documented negative test for HIV, which he saw yesterday afternoon barely four hours before the fight. He admitted he had reservations, no matter if Morrison still had a trace of the virus or not: "There was a lot of controversy going around."

Mesi (34-0), wearing a Buffalo Sabres jersey into the ring, made quick work of Linberger (29-9-1) of Barberton, Ohio, who outweighed Mesi by 37 pounds. The boxer known as Baby Joe went after his opponent with a vicious flurry, trapping him against the ropes. He used a right for his first knockdown and then a series of lefts followed by a right for a second knockdown only a few breaths later, felling Linberger in a face-first heap at 1:55 of the first round.

"I'm not like a beaten fighter, slurring and stuttering all over the place," Mesi said. "I'm young and fresh. People haven't even seen me peak yet."

It could be interesting to see -- in a ring and in state boxing-commission meetings -- how Mesi and Morrison proceed from here.