By Matt Bozeat
RAY ‘BOOM BOOM’ MANCINI is the fighter who was too big for Hollywood!
Mancini might have been familiar to millions of movie goers as Mr Pink had it not been for his high-profile spell as WBA lightweight champion.
Quentin Tarantino was impressed enough with his acting to give him three auditions for the role of Mr Pink in his 1992 movie ‘Reservoir Dogs’ before handing the role to Steve Buscemi.
“An actor knows when he does well or when he stinks the joint out,” said Mancini, a chatty and thoughtful interviewee.
“I was right on it.
“Tarantino said to me: ‘That was great, but I can’t give you the role.’ I asked him why and he said: ‘People will sit there and say: ‘That’s ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini’ and it will take away from the film.
“I was angry. I wanted to know why he brought me back three times and he said: ‘I wanted to meet you and thought you would fall flat on your face. But you were great.’
“I pushed the table towards him and started calling him every name. I pushed the table closer and closer to him and people were saying: ‘Please, Mr Mancini.’
“I caught myself. I stopped and said: ‘How’s that for acting?’
“I wasn’t acting at all. I was pissed off. I didn’t want them to think I had lost control because I was treated like a jerk off.
“But he brought me back three times. Come on!
“If they bring you back for a second, it’s because they like what you have done. If you come back for a third, it’s between you and someone else or you and a couple of guys.
“But he never considered me. I knocked it out of the park, but didn’t give me the role because of who I am.
“Steve Buscemi was great as Mr Pink. I would have been just as good, but different. Certain roles you can’t imagine anyone else doing, but George Raft was first choice for ‘Casablanca,’ not Humphrey Bogart and Harrison Ford got the Indiana Jones role because Tom Selleck wasn’t available.”
Fortunately, Mancini has his own production company, explaining: “I started the company so I would always get a good role.”
He has a role in his next project ‘The Monkey’s Nest’ that he describes as “Saturday Night Fever meets The Sopranos” and hopes to start shooting by the end of the year.
“It’s a crime drama set in the world of electronic dance music,” he said, “and I believe it’s very commercial.
“It’s an idea I came up with years ago, I hired writers and now we have a script. We are talking to a lot of A-list actors.”
A-listers such as Sylvester Stallone and Frank Sinatra were regulars at ringside when Mancini fought.
“The 1980s was a great time for boxing in the States and maybe the world,” he said.
“Network television was involved and that exposed me to 60 million people domestically and 100 million worldwide.
“Boxing was always a sport about ethnicity and I was the only white champion out there and I had a fan-friendly style. That’s why actors and celebrities would come to see me.”
Mancini also had a story behind his boxing career.
Father Lenny was the No 1 contender for the world lightweight championship when the Second World War broke out, robbing him of his shot at Sammy Angott, who he had previously narrowly lost to.
Mancini was wounded during the conflict and awarded a Purple Heart decoration. On his return to boxing, Mancini wasn’t the force he had been, boxing up at welterweight and middleweight.
He retired with a 46-12-3 record having never got a shot at the title and from the time Ray turned pro aged 18 in 1979, the narrative was that he wanted to win the world championship for his father.
“If you have the right management, each fight should bring you up a level,” he said. “That way you learn how to fight. You learn how to beat them the easiest way. I would get matches and get told: ‘You won’t knock him out, he’s too tough,’ so I learned how to beat him the easiest way.”
Until broadcasters CBS organised a tournament to find a challenger for lightweight champion Alexis Arguello.
“You take these chances when you get them,” said Ray, who lost brother Lenny to an unsolved murder in February, 1981.
“If you believe in yourself you have to fight the best.”
In the space of nine weeks and one day, Mancini came through Jorge Morales (28-8-1) and Jose Luis Ramirez (71-3) to get a shot at Arguello at the age of 20.
“I thought I would be too strong for Alexis,” he said. “I remembered him when he beat Ruben Olivares to become the featherweight champion and then Jim Watt [to become lightweight champion].
“He didn’t look good against Watt, but nobody did. He was tough, clever and a southpaw.
“I thought I had the strength, youth and athleticism to beat him. If it had been 12 rounds, I would have beaten him, but 15 rounds is the true championship distance.”
Mancini was stopped in the 14th, rebuilt with a couple of stoppages and get a shot at WBA lightweight champion Arturo Farias.
“He hurt me momentarily and my coach taught me that when they hurt you, you either cover up or fire back and I decided to fire back,” he said.
“I didn’t want him getting on top of me. I was thinking: ‘Let me get through this round and regroup,’ but I kept throwing punches, caught him and hurt him.”
Mancini finished the job in the first round, delivering the world championship belt to the family home.
His second defence was against Deuk Koo Kim and resulted in the death of the Korean after Mancini stopped him in 14 rounds.
Mancini would rather those who wish to discover his feelings read his biography ‘The Good Son’ – written by Mark Kriegel – or the documentary that followed it.
The highlight of the latter is the incredibly moving scene when Kim’s son visits him.
He was born months after his father’s death and Mancini said: “I was offered the chance to meet him and I felt I owed it to him and myself.
“I wanted him to know who I am. He never got to meet his father. He understood it was a competition and I just wanted to win.”
Mancini was confident he would win his high-profile defence against Bobby Chacon in January, 1984, a meeting of fan-friendly, all-action fighters.
“He was coming off two fights of the year [against Rafael Limon and Cornelius Boza-Edwards] in 1982 and 1983 – and I knew I was too big and strong,” remembered ‘Boom Boom.’
“But Bobby was dangerous. I couldn’t take him for granted. You have to jump on someone like Bobby or he will make it hard for you. You have to push him back and hurt him.”
Mancini overpowered Chacon in three rounds and watched his decline from dementia before he died in 2016, aged 64.
“I saw him when he was slowing down and struggling to talk,” he said. “I put my arms around him and told him I loved him and was proud of him.”
Mancini retired with a 29-5 record after successive losses to Livingston Bramble (twice), Hector Camacho and Greg Haugen and has stayed in touch with boxing, working as a commentator and host in both the States and Britain.
Mancini, who has three children and a granddaughter, is a regular at Excelsior Sporting Club shows in Cannock, Staffordshire.
“I would love to bring something like that back to the States,” he said. “They are so casual there. They want to dress down. I was thinking: ‘If I get people to wear a black tie, have a five-course dinner that would be wonderful.’”
The next Excelsior Sporting Club show staged by Scott Murray features one of Mancini’s favourite current fighters, Sam Eggington.
He will be matched on November 28 and Mancini says Eggington is “what boxing is all about. He’s a warrior who is out there earning money for his family.”
Mancini says “the fight game is good” and puts Naoya Inoue at the top of his pound-for-pound list.
“Some people ask me for advice, so I advise, but I’m not a trainer or manager,” he said of his current involvement in the sport.
“You can’t dabble. You need to make a commitment. I travel a lot. My businesses take me to different locations and a trainer has to be in the gym every day.
“I’m a fan.
“I love the fight game and what it did for me.”
