Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini: The Good Son
Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini, one of the most famous figures in sports history, was a the World Boxing Lightweight Champion from 1982 to 1984. His fast rising career took a dramatic turn after his 1982 match with South Korean opponent Duk Koo Kim lead to Kim’s death from brain injuries sustained during the match. Although Mancini continued fighting, nothing would ever be the same for him again. Mancini stopped by the SiriusXM studios this week to sit down with Ron Bennington to talk about his career, the infamous bout, and a new book and film documentary about his life and career, “The Good Son: The Ray Mancini Story.” Excerpts from the interview appear below.
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Ron Bennington: What a moving film that you guys were able to put together.
Ray Mancini: Thank you. I appreciate that.
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Ray Mancini Talks About “The Good Son” Being About the City of Youngstown
Ron Bennington: It’s about boxing, but it’s about so much more. It’s about your home town, things that happened to you…
Ray Mancini: Right, I’m very proud of it. I’m very proud. It’s as good as it’s going to get. It’s based on the book by Mark Kriegel, which I’m very proud of, and Mark did a wonderful job. For me, I was very blessed and very fortunate to work with two wonderful artists. Mark Kriegel – because if you don’t have somebody who can put down on paper the words that you’re talking, it’s just air. It’s just air. And then Jesse James Miller, if you don’t have somebody who can make those words come to life and resonate with people, it’s just words on a page. So, I was very fortunate to work with two wonderful artists. I’m so proud of the film because it’s not so much my story – it’s about my life. That’s why this fight – yeah, the fight’s a part of it, but it’s one chapter of my life. There’s a lot of chapters. The book goes more in-depth, obviously, but it’s about me growing up in Youngstown, wanting to be a fighter for my father. It’s my father’s story, his career, and what a great, stand-up guy he was… the city of Youngstown. Mark Kriegel says other than me and my father, the city of Youngstown is the most important character in the book, which it is. And then, the documentary, which now – you have 52 years to put into two hundred and sixty something pages, but then you have 90 minutes to do a life. So, for Mark with Jesse James Miller, who took that, and he showed the city of Youngstown, and he talked to people and showed why I was important at that time. I [came up] at the right time. We were at the highest point of unemployment in the country. The steel mills shut down – we were only two years removed from the steel mills shutting down. The steel industry – we were the second biggest steel producing city in the world.
Ron Bennington: That blow. That blow.
Ray Mancini: Oh yeah, we haven’t fully recovered yet.
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Ray Mancini Talks About How Things Ran In Youngstown
Ron Bennington: When you have scars, they heal over, but they can be scratched. They come back. And the stuff that was so moving to me, is of course what happened to your brother. Losing your brother at such a young age, that’s still right there like it happened the other day.
Ray Mancini: Yes. People don’t understand, growing up in Youngstown, we’re the only city of our size in the country that I know of – there may be others – but we’re the only city of our size controlled by two major mob families: Pittsburgh and Cleveland. So, growing up in Youngstown during that time – that was everyday life. Even when I was fighting, they were all proud of me, I knew everybody. Everybody knows everybody. But they never wanted anything to do with me, they were proud of me. They didn’t try to get involved with my business. So, we’d be out after a fight, I’d be hanging out, sitting around having a drink, and I’d be sitting next to the city official here, there’d be a guy on the school board across from me, and there’d be a wise guy here. But we all knew, because we all grew up in the same neighborhood, we all have jobs to do. We’re all carrying our lunch pails to the job, it’s just different jobs. But growing up in Youngstown that was understood. It was no big deal. Everyone’s got a different job, and that just happened to be their job. So, when you grow up in that life, it’s part of it. It’s just part of the everyday fabric.
Ron Bennington: Connected guys went to the same school as the cops, and as long as everybody stayed in their own little place, it was okay.
Ray Mancini: Like you said, their business was theirs, mine was mine. Our businesses didn’t cross over. It didn’t conflict. So, it was a great city to grow up. I wouldn’t want to grow up any other place. I guess, part of where I come from is what breeds good fighters. Steel mill, blue collar town, salt of the earth people, great work ethic. To get any success, you’ve got to work hard, pay the dues. And that was all instilled in me at a young age.
Ron Bennington: And the same thing of your fighting style of keep coming, keep coming.
Ray Mancini: Yeah, I think my style – People often ask me why do I think the city and me connected. Well, first of all, I came at the right time – I make no bones about it. We were only two years removed from the steel mills, as I said, and they were looking to hold onto something. I happened to be that guy, because I’d done well in the amateurs, they watched me. [I had a] crowd pleasing style, action-packed fighter. More than anything, I think my style was indicative of the town. I’d take some shots, they’d give shots, but at the end of the day I’m going to be standing. And I’m moving forward all the time, taking some, giving some. But I’m moving forward all the time, that’s the town. We take some shots but we keep moving forward, and then they were still standing.
Ron Bennington: But you would go into these fights, Ray, knowing you were going to be hurt no matter what was happening, you were going to hurt.
Ray Mancini: Yeah, my style was not made for a long career. I knew that on Front Street. But my style was fan-friendly, so I was hoping to be able to make my score and financially be okay that I could get out in time. And I did, and I was fortunate that I did be able to do that. One thing I’m most proud of, I tell people I’m most proud of about my career, I can still spell “fight.” And I say it half-jokingly, because so many guys can’t.
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Ray Mancini Talks About His Match With Duk Koo Kim
Ron Bennington: In Duk Koo Kim you came up with kind of a mirror image of yourself. You came up against a guy who really had your sensibilities.
Ray Mancini: Well, styles make fights as you’ve heard me – fighters don’t make fights, styles make fights. So, my manager Dave Wolf sent me a tape. He said, “Ray, this is the guy we got to fight next.” I watched one round, maybe a round and a half, that’s it. I turned it off, I said, “Dave, it’s going to be a headache. It’s going to be a headache.” I know what I’m up against, but let’s get ready and prepared. I’ll be prepared, I’ll be ready. But I knew what it was. As a fighter, you know what you’re up against. You know how you have to prepare. I always said, fighting guys from other countries – to be a true world champion, I always felt you had to fight guys, travel the globe, or fight guys from other countries and beat these guys to say you’re world champion. You can’t just fight guys from America fighting in America. That doesn’t make you a world champion. When you see a lot of these guys like Kim or anybody else, they fight for more than themselves. They’re fighting for their country, the pride of their country. And not only the opportunity to better their life in their country. So, even some guys may lack the talent, so to speak, that we think a lot of American fighters would have, but they come out with the heart, desire, determination that other fighters, American fighters don’t have. So, I knew what I was up against. And I prepared that way – mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually – every which way. So, that’s why I was able to get through that fight the way I did. I was in great shape, obviously – you have to be in tip-top shape – it’s a grueling fight. But mentally and emotionally, you’re in the ring and you’re getting hit with shots. I said, it was the only fight that my body wanted to shut down. I just wanted to quit. But my mind wouldn’t allow it to. It’s funny how the body’s the army, the mind’s the general. The body will do whatever the mind tells it. My power, strength of mind wouldn’t allow me to stop.
Ron Bennington: But when you were hitting him and he kept coming back, hitting him and he kept coming back, was there a part of you thinking, “Who the hell is this guy?”
Ray Mancini: Well, yeah. You hit this guy with some shots and then by the end of the round he’s pushing me back. Like I said, it was a tremendous display of determination, desire, and will by Kim. There was one round, in the 5th or 6th round, I hit him with a series of shots – bing, bing, bing – all of a sudden he steps back and puts his hands up, he’s pumping his arms. I was going, “You’ve got to be kidding me, man!” I just banged this guy some good shots. Yeah, that can be a little defeating mentally if you allow it to.
Ron Bennington: That’s the real irony of this whole thing is, it was a great fight. It gets remembered differently, but it was a great fight.
Ray Mancini: Ron, you just said it. Other than the outcome, other than the outcome, it was a great fight, like you just said. It would be one of the fights you’d be seeing on ESPN Classic all the time.
Ron Bennington: Right, and you’d still be talking about it anyway. It would be one of those fights.
Ray Mancini: And by all accounts, everyone proved themselves admirably. Kim, myself, and the referee, Richard Green who did a wonderful job. People talk about Richard Green – could he have stopped it? No! Where could he have stopped it? It wasn’t like Emile Griffith / Benny “The Kid” Paret where he was held up on the ropes and I kept hitting him. I would throw punches, he would come back with punches. It was one punch in the middle of an exchange that he went down. So, there’s no reason that – how could Richard do that? Never.
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Ray Mancini on How Duk Koo Kim’s Death Affected Him
Ron Bennington: You were a kid…
Ray Mancini: I was a 20-year-old kid, young man who’s trying to grasp it all. And then you had people going on TV seeing – every day it was on national news, not just sports, it was on national news. But it would be everyday people, the things they’d say when I’d see them. I couldn’t leave my house for about a week, but finally I was getting stir crazy. So I went out to a place that I frequent, and they put me in a corner. People would come up to me, and [say], “Boom Boom, I’m proud of you!” And some people would come up and make some stupid comments, and say, “Hey, what was it like seeing a guy go down knowing he’s never going to get up?” What kind of a stupid statement – what do you mean? One time I went to see my nephew play, he was playing football. Young boy came up to me and said, “Hey, you know who I am?” He said, “I’m Duk Koo Kim’s son.” I said, “Where’s your father? I’m going to beat his ass.” Just because, you know a young kid didn’t do that.
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Ray Mancini on Meeting Kim’s Son
Ron Bennington: You did get the chance to meet Kim’s son and you did it on camera and it’s incredibly moving because it kind of shows that interconnectedness that we all have.
Ray Mancini: I think that’s the theme of the book. When Mark Kriegel approached me about doing a book, I said, “Mark – no false modesty – in all respect, I don’t know what could be said that hasn’t been written already.” He said, “No, no, no. It’s a book about fathers and sons. You and your father, your father with his father when he came from Sicily, you and your children.” He said, “Me and my father, I became a writer because my father was an English major.” He said, “Ultimately Kim, and the father he didn’t know.” I thought, “Well, I buy into that. I buy into that.” And so, that’s important. And that’s why, when Mark approached me about meeting Chi-Wan, who wanted to meet me, I said, “Absolutely.” I thought it was important for him. It was important for me, but it was more important for him. Chi-Wan is a bright young man, he’s a veterinarian. He said something I thought was pretty deep. He said, “I’d like to meet Mr. Mancini.” He said, “If my father had fought differently, wouldn’t [have] fought so hard, my life would be different, my mother’s life would be different.” He said, “But ultimately, Mr. Mancini’s life, but the life of his children would be different, the things they have to go through.” I thought, “Man, for a young man to have that introspective, that’s pretty deep.” Now, when we did this, they told me, “Look, they’re in a car coming over,” and my director Jesse James Miller – I said, “Jesse, you’ve got one shot to get this. I can’t do this again. You got one shot!” So they had three cameras set up. At one of the screenings, a gentleman asked me, he said, “How many takes did it [take] for that?” I said, “What do you mean, how many takes? That was one take! You only had one shot.” I couldn’t go through that again. You can’t manufacture that. And that was important to me, I didn’t want it to come off as being manufactured or set up. It wouldn’t be right. So, what you saw is what you saw. I was very deeply impressed by him, but Young-Mee, the fiancée, I was more nervous about meeting her. Because this woman is expecting to spend the rest of her life with this guy, he passed at my hands. But she was so gracious and loving, and just so – so gracious. It was just wonderful. It put me at ease.
Ron Bennington: And also, I thought it was important for him to hear from you that you really, in that time, got to know who his father was. The essence of what that man was. That he was willing to put so much into it was incredibly moving. And it’s also interesting, you’re from Youngstown, he’s from the other side of the world, but everybody’s people. Everybody’s the same.
Ray Mancini: That’s the thing about the fight game people don’t understand. I often say, for those moments I’m in the ring with that person, I may have never met him before, I may never see him again after. But for those moments, I know him better than anybody. I know him better than his mother, his father, his wife, his girlfriend – because I know what’s on his inside. I know what’s down deep. And there’s only certain people that can bring it out of you. Like, Duk Koo Kim brought it out of me – he brought the best out of me, and I knew what was on his inside. This guy was a tremendous warrior. He was a ferocious warrior, not only for his family, but for his country. He would’ve been a great champion someday.
Ron Bennington: It reminded me, because it’s always seemed strange that you see boxers hug so hard after fights. You don’t see that in baseball players, because there’s something exchanged there.
Ray Mancini: Sure, sure. We have a mutual respect. We know what we’re trying to accomplish, and we have that respect for each other.
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Ron Bennington: The film is terrific. Thanks so much for stopping by, Ray. I was always a fan, always thought you were a good guy, but even more important, I think you’re a really good man.
Ray Mancini: Ron, that means more to me than anything. Thank you.
Ron Bennington: Thank you so much.
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[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4Ymk-9r6RU]
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“The Good Son: The Ray Mancini Story” iTunes and On Demand. In Theaters August 9. For more information, go to thegoodsondocumentary.com.
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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio. Not yet a subscriber? Click here for a free trial subscription.
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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.
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