‘The Good Son’ by Mark Kriegel
‘Hurry home early, hurry on home, ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini’s fightin’ Bobby Chacon,’’ or so went the compelling first lines of Warren Zevon’s paean to the former lightweight champion. And Zevon was right. When Ray Mancini was in the ring there was every reason to “hurry on home’’ and watch the bruising artist who punched nonstop and never took a backward step.
In “The Good Son,’’ Mark Kriegel, a FOXSports.com columnist and author, compellingly chronicles the life of Mancini, who rose from a hardscrabble Midwestern background to briefly hold the lightweight boxing championship in a reign best remembered for a 1982 bout that resulted in the death of Duk Koo Kim, a fight that would mark the beginning of the end of Mancini’s career.
Ray Mancini was born in the steel town of Youngstown, Ohio, in 1961, when jobs had begun gushing away from the Mahoning River Valley. Kriegel captures the anxiety and despair that hovered like factory smoke over those living on the buckle of the Rust Belt. The downturn also created a craving for a fighter who could embody the toughness and grit of its people — and that was the immensely popular “Boom Boom’’ Mancini.
Mancini was an old-school fighter who achieved a dream deferred by his beloved father, Lenny. Also known as “Boom Boom,’’ the elder Mancini was a big banger and a number one contender whose career was thwarted by injuries sustained in World War II.
As a boxer, Ray Mancini was a hard-nosed body puncher. At the tender age of 20 and with only 20 bouts on his ledger, Mancini challenged one of the all-time greats, Alexis Arguello, for the lightweight championship. Arguello, who boasted a record of 67-5, was almost 6 inches taller than Mancini and yet for 13 scintillating rounds Mancini gave the future hall of famer all he could handle until he finally halted Mancini in the 14th.
Weeks later the single-minded Mancini was back in the ring. And in May 1982, it took Mancini only one round to wrest the WBA world lightweight crown from Arturo Frias.
Six months later, Mancini fought Duk Koo Kim. Before the fight, Kim, a South Korean who was not ranked highly by the US boxing press, prophetically stated, “Either he dies . . . or I die.’’ The bout was a brutal back-and-forth, with Mancini giving better than he got, and minutes after the contest, Kim collapsed into a coma. He
died a few days later. Months after the funeral, Kim’s mother committed suicide, and in 1983 Richard Green, the bout’s referee, died in what was ruled a suicide.
Mancini never fought with the same gusto again. As he once put it, “I fought to win the world title for my father. I fought for righteous reasons. But after the Kim fight, there was nothing righteous about it anymore.’’
Life, like boxing, is all about hitting and being hit. Mancini has taken punches and the worst of them were not delivered in gloved fists. Besides the death in the ring, Mancini’s sometimes wayward brother, with whom he was bosom close, died in what was determined to be a gun accident. The former champ also went through a painful divorce.
But as every boxing maestro teaches, you have to keep stepping forward. Kriegel’s superb biography makes it plain that unlike many of his boxing brethren who lose their fortune and footing in retirement, Mancini has continued stepping forward with all the grace and integrity you would expect from a very good son, and the pride of Youngstown.
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