The Real Story: Tommy Smokes Punched a Guy

First off, I'm not thrilled about blogging this. But for some reason I've agreed to be the one who strokes Tommy’s ego and gets more eyeballs on this video punching a groper at a bar.

And I'm not just doing this because Tommy is holding a loaded pistol to my head right now. He's only doing so metaphorically. It falls on me because I was fortunate/unfortunate enough to be with Tommy before this all went down. 

I was out at a bar with Tommy and a group of people who aren't relevant online in any way. Nothing crazy was happening. Tommy was there with one particular girl who I can only assume thinks she's somehow going to parlay a relationship with Tommy Smokes into internet clout. That's how I'm choosing to justify her existence in my head at least.

So we're at a bar. I'm having an extremely regular time playing free skee-ball and pretending to not be annoyed by how often people recognize Tommy. I had a handful of beers. Tommy had a handful of $16 brightly colored cocktails. Nothing noteworthy at all. Eventually we got bored of skee-ball and decided to go to another bar. Tommy and the rest of the girls went straight there, while me and my girlfriend stopped to get some food since we hadn't eaten all day. I had my first ever chopped cheese. It was gross and I enjoyed it. 

Of course, while we're getting food, I missed the fun part. I'm assuming this punch happened sometime around my 3rd or 4th bite of chopped cheese. Apparently I missed the incident by like 10-15 minutes. Tommy gives an abbreviated version of the story on the Rundown today, so if you want to hear it straight from Evander Holyfield's mouth, then watch that. But here's what happened from the perspective of somebody who unequivocally was not there, but sorta-kinda loosely involved. 

When I got to the bar, Tommy and his "appropriately-aged" girls were at a table, so we sat down to join them. As soon as we sat down Tommy says, "I got us free drinks." Which I was immediately annoyed by because I assumed the bartender just couldn't get enough of Tommy's Fucking Thursday Thoughts and simply had to bless him with a round a pitchers. 

But nope, don't worry. It was way stupider than that. The bartender was thanking Tommy for "punching" (or upon further review, slowly guiding his fist into the cheek) of a "man who was causing problems at the bar". I wasn't even told he grabbed this girls ass at first. I think the girl was embarrassed by it or something, and for some reason the rest of the people were protecting her by just telling me the man was causing problems. Which made no sense at all. At first I thought the free drinks were just the bar trying to make the girls feel better, because they were clearly rattled by the situation. Idk. That sounds just as stupid typing it out as it did when I was being told this in real time, but that was my read on the situation.

Eventually when the girls stepped away for a minute, Tommy told me exactly what happened. There was actual tension in the group, and I'm positive these girls weren't just great actors, so something obviously went down. It wasn't like a group celebration of Tommy. Which in hindsight seems kinda stupid. Not to tell these girls how they should feel, but it wasn't like some massive life-changing incident. But whatever, I'm just telling you what the vibe was.

So we're drinking our free pitchers, still not talking about what actually happened. Once we finish the pitchers, the bartender brings us 2 more free ones, because apparently Tommy just saved the city. As we all drink more and start loosening up a bit, then everyone finally starts talking about it. It was a whole bunch of... 

"Did that seriously just happen?"

"I can't believe you actually punched that dude", 

"Tommy you're amazing!"

"Do we just get free beers for life now?"

Now that the horrific trauma that they all experienced was behind them, things were actually fun. And the bar was just getting started. This fucking bar, who doesn't serve food in any way shape or form, sends a bartender to our table with 4 whole pizzas. Completely complimentary. They ordered pizzas for us.

We ate like 1 of the pizzas, then were just sitting there with 3 whole pies. Which was kind of an inconvenience at first, but then we got to pass out slices to everyone at the bar, which made us (and by us I mean Tommy) even more popular. People were taking pictures with him, they were buying him shots, shaking his hand, it was ridiculous. At that point, I'm not even sure how many people knew the punch happened. I thought they either just knew Tommy from Barstool, or were super fired about free 1-topping pizza slices. 

We then learned that the bar owner's son is a big Barstool fan, which made everything make a little bit more sense. He asked Tommy if he'd hang around for a bit so his son could come meet him. At this point we had to, considering how well they were treating us. We assumed his son would be some high school or college kid, but about 20 minutes later this 12-year old boy in a Yankees hat shows up at the bar. It was literally like this kid was meeting Derek Jeter. I say literally because this literal kid had Tommy Smokes sign a literal baseball for him. There is now a Tommy Smokes signed baseball that exists in this world.

Since we were just a couple blocks away from the office, Tommy asked the kid if he would like a tour of Barstool. So we walk with this 12-year old Tommy Smokes super fan and his dad to the Barstool office. We brought the pizzas with us because we felt like it would be rude to leave them behind. But on the way to the office, we passed a homeless woman with her 2 young children holding a cardboard sign that said, "Escaped war in Ukraine, hungry, anything helps."

So Tommy gives this woman and her starving children the pizzas, and even runs back to the bar to get them plates and napkins. We sit there with this woman and she tells us a crazy story about how her apartment complex was bombed, but she was able to escape with her kids to a makeshift bunker somewhere in Kiev. They then met up with this missionary group out of Germany who was helping families get out of the country. This group got the family, along with like 20 other people all the way to the Berlin airport, and bought them one-way tickets to the United States. But apparently this group just had nothing planned for them after that, and now this woman is 5,000 miles away from home living on a New York City street with nothing to her name.

Tommy was gone for a while, so we heard this whole tragic story. I was borderline tearing up. Then finally, Tommy comes around the corner with the plates and napkins. On top of that pulls out of his pocket a $1000 stack of cash and gives it to the mom, and invites them up to the Barstool office to eat the pizzas. The homeless Ukrainian refugee family kindly accepts the offer. 

We do the whole office tour with Tommy's super fan, his dad the bar owner, and this group of girls who are still with us, and are now soaking wet from watching Tommy Smokes be a hero all day. We set up the Ukrainian's on the couches in the green room where they eat their pizza, and the kids immediately fall asleep.

After the tour, Tommy signs a few more autographs for the kid and gives him a box full of Barstool merch. The kid was downright giddy. Him and his dad went on their way, we thanked them once again, then went back to check on the refugees. We get to talking and learn that this woman was a cleaning lady back in Ukraine. Tommy immediately calls the cleaning service we use at Barstool to see if they had any openings. Apparently they always have openings, so Tommy set up an interview. Fingers crossed that this woman will get a full time job, but from the sounds of it they're planning on hiring her.

Before we left the office, Tommy gave the Ukrainian refugees the key to his apartment. He's very humble, so he'll never say this publicly, but Tommy is currently sleeping in what was formerly the Barstool Gametime Room (i.e. Romper Room), while this poor family of 3 lives in his 1-bedroom apartment until they can get on their feet. He told them they can stay at his place until she's saved up enough money to get an apartment of her own. Tommy is not materialistic, and he loves Barstool so much that he's more than happy to live in the office for as long as necessary.

I still have no idea who this Connor Broderick guy who took the video is, other than some weirdo who from the looks of it was just filming Tommy for the hell of it. He must have left soon after because I'm sure he would have showed us the video in real time. But yeah that's about it. I still can't believe that all went down this Sunday, but I figured the story was worth telling. Hopefully this doesn't get to his head.

Ok most of that didn’t happen but yes Tommy did sign a baseball for a child, which was weird but Tommy is big on TikTok so I guess not too weird. But Tommy really did punch that dude which is maybe wilder than anything else in this blog.