Ray Mancini (born Raymond Michael Mancino; March 4, 1961), best known as "Boom Boom" Mancini, is an American former
professional boxer
Professional boxing, or prizefighting, is regulated, sanctioned boxing. Professional boxing bouts are fought for a purse that is divided between the boxers as determined by contract. Most professional bouts are supervised by a regulatory autho ...
who competed professionally from 1979 to 1992 and who has since worked as an actor and
sports commentator. He held the
WBA lightweight
Lightweight is a weight class in combat sports and rowing.
Boxing
Professional boxing
The lightweight division is over 130 pounds (59 kilograms) and up to 135 pounds (61.2 kilograms) weight class in the sport of boxing.
Notable lightweight ...
title from 1982 to 1984.
Mancini inherited his nickname from his father, boxer
Lenny Mancini. In 2015, Ray was inducted into the
International Boxing Hall of Fame
The modern International Boxing Hall of Fame (IBHOF), located in Canastota, New York, honors boxers, trainers and other contributors to the sport worldwide. Inductees are selected by members of the Boxing Writers Association of America. The I ...
.
Early life and amateur career
Mancini, an American of Italian descent, was born Raymond Michael Mancino in
Youngstown, Ohio
Youngstown is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio, and the largest city and county seat of Mahoning County. At the 2020 census, Youngstown had a city population of 60,068. It is a principal city of the Youngstown–Warren metropolitan area, whi ...
on March 4, 1961. Boxing played a prominent role in the Mancini family history. Mancini's father, Lenny Mancini (the original "Boom Boom"), was a top-ranked contender during the 1940s. Lenny Mancini's dream, however, was dashed when he was wounded during World War II. Although Lenny Mancini returned to boxing, limitations resulting from his injuries prevented him from fulfilling his potential.
He was a childhood friend and neighbor to future
Oklahoma Sooners
The Oklahoma Sooners are the athletic teams that represent the University of Oklahoma, located in Norman. The 19 men's and women's varsity teams are called the "Sooners", a reference to a nickname given to the early participants in the Land Ru ...
football head coach
Bob Stoops.
Lenny inspired Ray to develop his boxing skills and encouraged him to train at a gym when he was quite young. Thus, Ray then began his quest to win the world title for his father.
Professional career
On October 18, 1979, Mancini made his professional debut and defeated
Phil Bowen with a first-round knockout. His whirlwind punching style caught the attention of network executives at several American television networks, and he became a regular on their sports programming. During this time Mancini defeated some notable boxers including former US champion Norman Goins in March 1981.
Lightweight title challenges
On April 30, 1980, Mancini defeated Bobby Sparks with a knockout at 1:28 in the first round for the regional Ohio State Lightweight title. Over a year later on May 16, 1981, Mancini won his first major title by defeating Jorge Morales for the WBC-affiliated
NABF Lightweight championship when the referee determined that Morales could not continue after the 9th round. In the post-match interview, Ray said that he was "keeping this title for myself because the world title is going to my dad". Two months later, he successfully defended the title against
José Luis Ramírez after a unanimous decision. Mancini's first attempt at a world title came on October 3 when he was pitted against
Alexis Argüello
Alexis Argüello (April 19, 1952 – July 1, 2009) was a Nicaraguan professional boxer who competed from 1968 to 1995, and later became a politician. He was a three-weight world champion, having held the WBA featherweight title from 1974 to 19 ...
for his
World Boxing Council
The World Boxing Council (WBC) is an international professional boxing organization. It is among the four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation ...
lightweight title. The event was selected by many (including ''
The Ring'' and
ESPN
ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). Th ...
) as one of the most spectacular fights of the 1980s. Mancini gave Argüello trouble early and built a lead on the scorecards, but Argüello used his experience to his advantage in the later rounds and stopped Mancini in the 14th round.
Mancini would rebound from the loss to Argüello by winning his next two bouts, including a second successful defense of his NABF Lightweight title against Julio Valdez (10th-round TKO) which would earn him another chance at a world title.
WBA Lightweight champion
On May 8, 1982, in a match held at
The Aladdin in
Las Vegas
Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...
, he challenged the new
World Boxing Association
The World Boxing Association (WBA), formerly known as the National Boxing Association (NBA), is the oldest and one of four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Council (WBC), International Boxi ...
lightweight champion,
Arturo Frias
Arturo Frias (born October 27, 1955) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1975 to 1985. He held the WBA lightweight title from 1981 to 1982.
Boxing career
Frias began his professional boxing career on February 7, 1975, one ...
. Fifteen seconds into the fight, Frias caught Mancini with a left hook to the chin and another combination made Mancini bleed from his eyebrow. Mancini recovered and dropped Frias right in the center of the ring with a combination. Dazed, Frias got back up but Mancini immediately went on the offensive and trapped Frias against the ropes. After many unanswered blows, referee Richard Greene stopped the fight at 2:54 in the first round, and the Mancini family finally had a world champion.
Match against Duk Koo Kim
Mancini's first title defense, against former world champion
Ernesto España, went smoothly with a Mancini
knockout win in the 6th round.
On November 13, 1982, a 21-year-old Mancini met 27-year-old
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korean Peninsula and sharing a land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed by the Yellow Sea, while its eas ...
n challenger
Duk Koo Kim
Kim Duk-koo (Hangul:김득구; born Lee Deokgu, Hangul: 이덕구; July 29, 1955November 18, 1982) was a South Korean boxer who died after fighting in a world championship boxing match against Ray Mancini. His death sparked reforms aimed at bette ...
. Kim had struggled to make the weight limit, and had to lose several pounds shortly before the fight. The title bout, at
Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, was televised live on
CBS Sports
CBS Sports is the sports division of the American television network CBS. Its headquarters are in the CBS Building on W 52nd Street in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, with programs produced out of Studio 43 at the CBS Broadcast Center on W ...
. Mancini won by TKO in the 14th round. Moments after the fight ended, Kim collapsed and fell into a coma, having suffered a
subdural hematoma
A subdural hematoma (SDH) is a type of bleeding in which a collection of blood—usually but not always associated with a traumatic brain injury—gathers between the inner layer of the dura mater and the arachnoid mater of the meninges surround ...
, and died four days later.
[
] The week after his death, the cover of ''
Sports Illustrated
''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twi ...
'' magazine showed Mancini and Kim battling, under the title "Tragedy in the Ring".
Mancini went to the funeral in South Korea and fell into a deep depression afterwards.
He has said that the hardest moments came when people approached him and asked if he was the boxer who "killed" Duk Koo Kim. Mancini went through a period of reflection, as he blamed himself for Kim's death. In addition, Kim's mother died by suicide three months after the fight, and the bout's referee,
Richard Green, killed himself in July 1983.
[
]
As a result of Kim's death, the
WBC took steps to shorten its title bouts to a maximum of 12 rounds. The
WBA and
WBO followed in 1988, and the
IBF in 1989.
Later matches
Mancini began the process of getting his life back together by once again putting on boxing gloves. He went to Italy to face British champion
George Feeney, where he won a 10-round decision.
He defended his title two more times. First, on September 15, 1983, he beat Peruvian challenger
Orlando Romero by a knockout in nine rounds at
Madison Square Garden to achieve a lifelong dream of fighting in that building, and then after a November 25 tune-up bout in which he defeated Johnny Torres by first-round knockout in his return to the Caesar's Palace hotel in Las Vegas, in January 1984, in
a bout with former world champion
Bobby Chacon
Bobby Chacon (November 28, 1951 – September 7, 2016) was an American professional boxer who competed from 1972 to 1988. He held titles in two weight classes, including the WBC featherweight title from September 1974 to June 1975 and the WBC su ...
, which was broadcast on
HBO, Mancini defeated Chacon when referee Richard Steele stopped the fight in the third round with blood dripping from Chacon's left eye at
Reno, Nevada
Reno ( ) is a city in the northwest section of the U.S. state of Nevada, along the Nevada-California border, about north from Lake Tahoe, known as "The Biggest Little City in the World". Known for its casino and tourism industry, Reno is the ...
.
In June 1984, Mancini, still recovering from the emotional trauma of Kim's death, fought
Livingstone Bramble to defend his title in
Buffalo, New York
Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...
. This time however, Mancini came out on the losing end, defeated after 14 rounds.
[
] Mancini lost the title, but not before a fierce effort that resulted in an overnight stay at
Millard Fillmore Hospital and 71 stitches around one eye.
[
]
Mancini returned to the ring twice to attempt to regain his world title. In a rematch with Bramble, Mancini lost the fight by one point on all three judges' scorecards in a 15-round decision. His next attempt came in March 1989, when he lost to
Héctor 'Macho' Camacho in a split decision, Mancini had one final fight in April 1992, against former lightweight champion
Greg Haugen
Greg Lee Haugen (born August 31, 1960) is a retired American boxer. Haugen was champion at both the lightweight and light welterweight classes. He trained under Jim Montgomery.
Haugen turned pro in 1982 and won his first 17 fights before challen ...
. Mancini lost when referee
Mills Lane
Mills Bee Lane III (November 12, 1937 – December 6, 2022) was an American boxing referee and professional boxer, a two-term Washoe County, Nevada district court judge, and television personality.
Lane was best known for having officiated se ...
stopped the fight in the seventh round.
Retirement and later work
A made-for-television movie based on Mancini's life aired in the 1980s.
The former champion was able to keep 75 percent of his $12 million in
purse money, which enabled him to pursue a broad range of interests in retirement.
Mancini, who as of 2007 resided in Los Angeles, owns the El Campeon Cigar Company and operates two movie production companies.
Mancini appeared in and produced a handful of films. He appeared in the quirky 1994 comedy ''
The Search for One-eye Jimmy'', in
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet (; born November 30, 1947) is an American playwright, filmmaker, and author. He won a Pulitzer Prize and received Tony nominations for his plays ''Glengarry Glen Ross'' (1984) and '' Speed-the-Plow'' (1988). He first gained cri ...
's MMA film ''
Redbelt
''Redbelt'' is a 2008 American martial arts film written and directed by David Mamet and starring Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tim Allen, Alice Braga, Randy Couture, Ricky Jay, Joe Mantegna, Emily Mortimer, David Paymer, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Rodri ...
'', and in the 2000 remake ''
Body and Soul''. Mancini played Charlie, Frank's retired father, in ''
Bad Frank
''Bad Frank'' is an independent action film written and directed by Tony Germinario. It stars Kevin Interdonato, Amanda Clayton and Tom Sizemore.
Plot
After having sex with his wife, seemingly nice guy Frank is having trouble because he's out ...
'' (2017).
Mancini produced ''Youngstown: Still Standing'' in 2010, which premiered at the 34th Cleveland International Film Festival on March 24. The documentary film featured his hometown friend, actor
Ed O'Neill
Edward Leonard O'Neill (born April 12, 1946) is an American actor and comedian. His roles include Al Bundy on the Fox Network sitcom '' Married... with Children'', for which he was nominated for two Golden Globes, and Jay Pritchett on the a ...
, and also included
Jim Cummings,
Kelly Pavlik,
Jay Williams, Andrea Wood, and Mancini himself, among many other Youngstown natives and locals. John Chechitelli – another Youngstown native – directed and edited the 89-minute-long film. It recounts the history of Youngstown, Ohio, from its founding in 1797 to the present.
Mancini has a son also named Ray who appeared in the YouTube reality series SummerBreak, in which Manicini also had a guest role.
Mancini practices
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and holds a purple belt in the martial art. And he became a fight analyst for the Fox reality series ''
Celebrity Boxing
''Celebrity Boxing'' is a FOX television show, in which celebrities whose careers and/or notoriety had diminished were pitted against each other in exhibition boxing matches. The contestants wore headgear during the fights, which were scheduled ...
''.
In popular culture
*
Warren Zevon
Warren William Zevon (; January 24, 1947 – September 7, 2003) was an American rock singer, songwriter, and musician.
Zevon's most famous compositions include "Werewolves of London", " Lawyers, Guns and Money", and " Roland the Headless Th ...
included a biographical song about Mancini called "Boom Boom Mancini" on his 1987 album ''
Sentimental Hygiene''.
*
Sun Kil Moon's 2003 album ''
Ghosts of the Great Highway'' includes the track "Duk Koo Kim" which references the fight between Mancini and Kim.
*In 2013, a documentary about Mancini was released called ''
The Good Son: The Life of Ray Boom Boom Mancini''.
*In 2015, Mancini spoke to
Retro Report
Retro Report is a non-profit news organization that produces short-form documentaries for historical context of current news stories. The organization describes itself as a counterweight to the 24-hour news cycle. They have covered topics includi ...
about the repercussions of his fight with
Duk Koo Kim
Kim Duk-koo (Hangul:김득구; born Lee Deokgu, Hangul: 이덕구; July 29, 1955November 18, 1982) was a South Korean boxer who died after fighting in a world championship boxing match against Ray Mancini. His death sparked reforms aimed at bette ...
, "Blood and Sport".
Professional boxing record
References
External links
*
*
*
Mancini vs. Kim 30-year anniversaryat ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mancini, Ray
1961 births
Boxing commentators
American boxers of Italian descent
Living people
Boxers from Youngstown, Ohio
World Boxing Association champions
American practitioners of Brazilian jiu-jitsu
American male boxers
World lightweight boxing champions
Light-welterweight boxers
American male actors
International Boxing Hall of Fame inductees