Boxing is not a sport for old people and over the decades there have been many fights that we could call “passing the torch”, when age gives way to younger legs and faster fists. Rocky Marciano knocks Joe Louis out of the ring and catapults himself to heavyweight glory. Mike Tyson sent Larry Holmes to the canvas three times in a single round. Oscar De La Hoya beating Julio César Chávez, and then, a decade later, Floyd Mayweather establishing his own dominance by beating “The Golden Boy.” In each case, the loser soon bowed out gracefully, with his legendary status intact, while the victor cemented his place in the pantheon of great wrestlers.
That’s what was supposed to happen when young superstar Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini faced former two-time world champion Bobby Chacón, also known as “The Schoolboy,” in 1984. Mancini was 22 years old, already a champion, and was ready to rule the lightweights for the rest. of the decade. Chacón, a decade older and a veteran of matchups against fellow Hall of Famers Rubén Olivares, Danny López and Alexis Argüello, was moving up in weight after a series of brutal championship fights at 130 pounds, and could do very little. to tarnish his legacy at 130 pounds. this point. It was a classic fight to cement Mancini as the new star and allow Chacón to leave the ranks with dignity.
But that’s not what happened. While the in-ring action of Mancini vs. Chacón was pretty much what people expected, it actually marked the last time either man did what the boxing script said he should do.
That night, Mancini was clearly the bigger man. While Chacón appeared thin and had little tone in his upper body, Ray looked like he had been carved from marble by a Renaissance sculptor. To be fair, Chacón had looked like the smaller man in many of his fights before winning, but that’s one thing when a boxer is on the rise and another when he’s on the decline.
Despite his granite chin, everyone knew that Bobby would have to stay away from the ropes to have a chance against the powerful Mancini, and for much of the first round that’s what he did. But then Mancini pushed Chacón out of the clinch and against the ropes and then kept the challenger on the back foot for the rest of the frame. A minute into the second round, Bobby was cornered again and took a beating from Mancini, ducking and sliding as best he could, but the punches were connecting for the champion, and even the Chacon fans in the stands could see that their man was outmatched. . shot and overtaken.
The third was more of the same and just over a minute into the round, referee Richard Steele stopped the fight. It was a strange stoppage as Steele stepped in first to finish it, but then watched Chacon throw another punch and let things play out for a few more moments before finally stopping the one-sided ordeal. However, no one watching could have doubted that a Mancini victory would be the end result, and Steele certainly acted in the best interests of the bleeding Chacón. As he wrapped his arms around the defeated man, Bobby said, “Thank you.”
So the fight went as planned, as did the post-fight dates in which Mancini called Chacón his hero and Bobby said with his trademark smile, “Ray, we were supposed to be friends. How come you hit me? Mancini smiled and replied, “Just business, Bobby. Just business.” It seemed as if the torch had been passed.
Boxing, however, is a strange craft. In fact, Chacón would fight another four years and, unlike most fighters past his prime, he won every fight. He never fought top contenders again, but did beat Freddie Roach and former champion Arturo Frias. In some ways, Chacón became a typical fighter who stayed too long, unable to recover lost gains or abandon the only life he had known, except that he somehow avoided the ignominious losses suffered by so many former champions. The only thing that happened to him as one would expect was the onset of dementia pugilistica, which seriously affected him until his death in 2016.
But Mancini took an even stranger path. Although he seemed ready to begin a legendary career, he never won another fight. In his next fight he lost his title to Livingstone Bramble, then lost a rematch and then retired for four years. The reason was, of course, that Mancini had never really gotten over his infamous fight with Duk Koo Kim in 1982. In that unforgettable clash, Mancini prevailed in a grueling fight, knocking out his brave challenger in the 14th round; Kim collapsed in the ring and died in the hospital days later. The tragic fight and its aftermath have since been documented in the excellent book The Good Son and the subsequent documentary of the same name.
Any boxing fan understood that Kim’s death was not Mancini’s fault, that all boxers know and accept the risks when entering the ring. There was no foul play in the match, and while it was Mancini’s punches that caused Kim’s fatal damage, none were thrown out of malice. That fight was also just business.
However, Mancini could not shake his depression despite his successful return to the sport (Chacón was his fourth opponent after Kim) and humorous exchanges with his defeated hero. Beneath, the darkness of what he had done a few years before lay untouched. It took him decades, and finally a meeting with Duk Koo Kim’s son, to be at peace again. In the end, even though both Chacón and Mancini were elected to the Hall of Fame, it is Ray’s dark journey that sparks people’s imaginations even today, while outside of boxing circles Chacón was in largely forgotten until his death: a tragic story in itself.
In 1987, Warren Zevon wrote a song called “Boom Boom Mancini,” about Ray and his life, his wars with Arguello and Kim, and the Chacón fight anchors the chorus:
“Hurry home early, hurry home. Boom Boom Mancini is fighting Bobby Chacón.”
That sums up the strange narrative that followed Mancini vs Chacón. With everything these two fighters endured in the years since, it was Mancini who remained in people’s minds. No doubt that had a lot to do with his life story, his storybook quest to fulfill his father’s ambition to be a world champion, along with his exciting battles against Arguello and Frias, but it certainly also had something to do with it. with that savage. he fights with Kim and a death in the ring. I’m sure Ray would have preferred it to have been different, but he still got the song and Bobby Chacón only got one line. -Joshua Isard
