Fighters? dreams are like kites whose strings have been cut. Those dreams dance, dive, and loop in the air, then disappear?
Boxing is a brutal sport. I?ve seen countless fighters whose faces have typically pugilistic scars. Eyebrows detour from their original routes. Ears look like once melted wax that hardened into inchoate shapes. Noses have been battered to look like small rock formations. Fighters don?t stand a chance in beauty contests, but they do have a macho look of heroics: they are durable victims and willful survivors of brutal fates.
I?ve publicized several fights and worked for individual fighters. Most of them are dreamers. For many of them, their dreams are like kites whose strings have been cut. Those dreams dance, dive, and loop in the air, then disappear.
?Sugar? Ray Kraus was the offspring of a white, Jewish father and a black Nigerian mother. He grew up in Harlem, a skinny kid with a pretty face. His father an amateur boxer taught him to defend himself from all the neighborhood bullies who thought Ray looked like a pretty girl. Ray developed powerful, fast fists. He could throw lightening fast combinations that eliminated bullies before they could finish spewing out curses of ugly insults. It quickly became apparent to everyone that Kid Kraus, as he was also known, was not a kid to mess with.
Though his father was a social worker and his mother a nurse, The Kid did not want to go to college. He was smart, but impatient. The gym where he trained reduced his inclination to sit still. He concentrated only on boxing and eventually caught the attention of sharp-eyed promoters who saw in The Kid a golden opportunity. They wanted to match him with middleweight contenders, but The Kid said he wanted to go to the Olympics and win a gold medal. Backers would pay for his training and everything else involved in going to the Olympics, but he would owe them. Owe them big time. The Kid would have to fight off the debt, and then he could earn the money that would set him up for the rest of his life. That?s how it would work out, he hoped.
He didn?t win the gold, but he was still impressive. He returned to New York and began pursuing his dream, the title. A promoter, who was pleased with the way I publicized one of his welterweights, hired me to promote The Kid.
Because of his speed and grace and good looks, we re-nicknamed him Sugar Ray Kraus. His name was a tribute and an echo, harking back to the greatest middleweight of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson. It was also a tribute to Sugar Ray Leonard.
Around his training camp and at the gym where he worked out, he was still called The Kid. And his concentrated innocence, indeed, made him seem like a kid determined to overcome all obstacles and do precisely what he wanted. He would do in the professional ring what he had been unable to do in the Olympics.
The Kid had signed a contract for 12 fights, he had already won 10, all by knockouts. He was a fast demolition fighter, disposing of his opponents as rapidly as possible. He hated getting hit, not only because he wanted to preserve his looks for his beautiful wife, but he also wanted to be smart enough to run successful businesses when he retired from the ring.
Though I was his publicist, I often went into his corner in the ring just as his trainer and manager did. I stood next to his trainer who sponged the back of The Kid?s neck, then gave him water to spit into a bucket. His muscular body glistened with sweat and smelled acrid, the odor of his determination to win. His mouthpiece re-inserted, he sprang back into the ring.
He fought like a man possessed, like a man protecting his home from vandals. He had one of the fastest left jabs I had ever seen. It flicked like a whip. It seemed to mesmerize and stun his opponent, sending him back and back and back. When he could go back no farther, he threw his arms around the force of the assault. The Kid shrugged him off, then threw a hard right cross. It landed with a thud on his opponent?s cheek, and was followed by a left cross to the jaw, and another right cross to the temple. The opponent went over like a tree. The referee rushed to the fallen fighter and pointed my boxer to a far corner. A moment later the count relentlessly reached its conclusion and the victor was announced. The referee raised The Kid?s hand in victory and we, his corner, rushed forward to congratulate him.
An hour after the fight, he was back in his apartment with his wife and baby girl. That was where he wanted to be all along, and his wife, so fearful of his getting hurt of having his handsome features re-arranged like a Picasso painting, would breathe a sigh of relief. Sometimes she even cried, she was so relieved.
I always accompanied him home after each fight. His backers had arranged for a limo to be always waiting after each fight.
?Only one more fight, and you?re a free man,? I said, encouragingly.
?At least, I?ll have something to show for it.?
?Yes, you will.?
?You know she?s pregnant again. And worried that I?m gonna get hurt and not be able to take care of my kids.?
?You?ll be just fine. You have no scars. Your brain is all right. Don?t worry.?
?That?s easy for you to say, you ain?t been in the ring. Some of those mothers want to kill me. The worst thing is to have one of them hit your head and feel your whole body go limp and you know you?re about to go off a cliff.?
?Your long arms keep them away from you.?
?One day, I?m gonna face a pit bull, a ragin? bull, whose just gonna keep coming, throwin? punches. If I can?t stop him, I?d rather go down than have my brains scrambled.?
?It?ll never happen,? I assured him.
I left him with his family, and the limo took me home. I had recently overheard the owners talking. With a fighter like The Kid, you didn?t have to have the judges in your pocket. The Kid would always be a sure thing.
The last fight was covered by closed circuit TV. It would be his last and biggest fight, his opponent was a hard-driving contender for the middleweight title. I was sure The Kid would win, but I also knew he might take a beating. I was worried, but said nothing. I didn?t want to pierce the armor of his self-confidence.
The night of the fight was filled with all the gaudy hoopla that I had expected. A sexy ring girl in stiletto heels and a skimpy bikini announced the rounds. Loud rock `n? roll music blared from the public address system. The first couple of rows were filled with ?the boys? and their ?babes.? There were enough Cuban cigars in the first five rows to fund the Cuban debt.
The Kid?s opponent that night was not the kind of guy you would want to meet on a dark deserted street. His muscular stocky body twitched with unfulfilled rage. His square scarred face had smoldering eyes that could drill through anyone?s easy self-confidence. He was as menacing as a child?s nightmare, as lethal as a pit bull about to break from his leash. When the fighters were called to the center of the ring to touch gloves, the opponent?s eyes smoked with such anger that I thought the fight might start before the first bell. His twisted mouth grunted, then cursed The Kid?s pretty face. The fighters returned to their corners.
The Kid had taken his opponent?s measure and stoically knew how he would fight him. He had diligently trained for this fight, watched films of his opponent?s earlier fights, and planned against his weaknesses.
The bell rang for round one. The short stocky fighter nearly rushed to our corner. The Kid danced away, bobbing and weaving, staying away from wild and dangerous swings. The crowd booed. They wanted blood. With less than a minute left in the round, The Kid shocked his opponent, catching him with a stinging right to the chin. The Kid had not telegraphed the punch, had not set it up with a left jab. From where I stood, the opponent?s jaw darted backward as if dislocated. His angry eyes went passive then rolled up to sleep in the darkness of his skull; his body folded onto the canvas like a dropped towel. It was over in two minutes and fifty-one seconds. Some of the crowd, deprived of its lust, booed. The rest cheered wildly, amazed at the suddenness of the victory.
The Kid retired from the ring and proved himself as good as his dream. He bought several businesses, ran them all successfully, and lived an uneventfully happy life. He could not have asked for anything more. A life of no regrets. How unusual for a fighter! How unusual for anyone.
