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Sonny Lawson was champion boxer.
Biography
Early life
Sonny was raised by his mother in Detroit, and had frequent run-ins with the police when he was young. One day his mother took him to the Brewster Centre and put him in the boxing ring to teach him a lesson. Here Sonny not only got his life back on track, but learned to become a boxer. He was boxing professionally by the time he turned 16, and had a shot at winning the title by age 23.
Involvement with the Dragotta crime family
Around this time, Sonny got coerced into competing in a fixed-odds fight, which the mob had set up so they could earn huge amounts of money when people betted in favour of Sonny only for him to deliberately lose. Sonny refused to participate at first, but changed his mind when the mob threatened his wife Martha and son Joey. After throwing the fight, Sonny's boxing license was revoked and his career seemed to have ended.
Sonny was later hired by the FBI to spy and collect evidence on the Dragotta Family. At some time during or before 1962, Sonny found himself employed as Johnny Dragotta’s own personal bodyguard, running errands for him in and around the Sands Hotel.
Meeting the Doctor
In 1963, the Twelfth Doctor attracted the attention of Johnny Dragotta after winning eight-hundred-thousand dollars' worth of gambling chips in the Sands Hotel's casino. Johnny sent Sonny to bring the Doctor to him, so he could be questioned. The Sands Hotel was then attacked by the Kronos Family, and Sonny saved the Doctor from being choked to death.
The Doctor and Sonny then visited the Cosmos Casino, which Sonny believed was being used as a front for their criminal enterprise. Here the Doctor asked Sonny why he was stooping to work for the Dragottas, knowing that he would later become a prize-winning boxer. The Doctor also suggested that Sonny could be a great asset to the civil rights movement. Here Sonny and the Doctor discovered that the Kronos Family was made up of agents of the Cybock Imperium, freed the people they had kidnapped, and escaped on a Cybock saucer which they co-piloted.
Soon after this a gang war erupted between the Dragotta and Kronos families, resulting in the Kronos family's involvement in the Las Vegas underworld being erased from time. At this point, Sonny told the Doctor and Clara Oswald that he had gathered enough evidence to indict the Dragottas, and intended to leave the FBI to spend time with his family while the boxing commission reviewed his case.
Aftermath
Sonny's boxing license was reinstated, and he went on to become a champion boxer and celebrity. He was one of Clara’s dad's favourite boxers of all time. (COMIC: Gangland)
Behind the scenes
Sonny Lawson is likely a stand-in for the real-life boxer Sonny Lawson, whose life story and name closely resemble that of the character.