Ex-Boxer Ray Mancini Is Looking for New, Exciting Worlds to Conquer

Ray Mancini retired last year at the age of 24, having achieved his childhood dream of international fame and wealth--and gradually grew depressed.

Mancini, who held the World Boxing Assn. lightweight title for two years and is better known as Boom Boom, had everything he ever wanted but, for the first time in his storybook life, found himself overcome by a “deep funk.”

“I was in a bad state of depression, and I couldn’t understand it because I’ve always been an up guy. I give motivational speeches around the country, to corporations, to colleges, and I couldn’t motivate myself, I couldn’t get out of it,” Mancini said in an interview.

He moved to Los Angeles last June, about a month after the airing of a television movie called “I Walk In His Shadow” about his life and idolizing relationship with his father, Lenny, himself a number one contender nicknamed Boom Boom who missed his shot at a world title because of World War II.

He was offered the starring role in the film but had to turn it down to fulfill a ring commitment that would later cost him his title. Mancini said an expected flood of offers for commercial endorsements never materialized.

Mancini returned to his home in Youngstown, Ohio, last November and sought the guidance of a longtime confidante, a priest who diagnosed his condition as “social shock.”

After so many years of a strictly regimented lifestyle, the priest told him, Mancini had been thrown into a world where he had nothing but time on his hands. “It hit me like a brick,” Mancini, now 25, said over lunch. “He said, ‘Ray, you accomplished your lifelong dream at a very young age. Everything else from here on will be anti-climactic.’

“And I went, Wow. I had never thought of it that way, and it’s true. Nothing ever will give me that same feeling. It’s sad in a way, but some people will never reach it.”

He conquered his depression, which Mancini said had nothing to do with the fatal blows he delivered to South Korean Duk Koo Kim in 1982 (“I got over that a long time ago.”), and threw himself into his new career in Hollywood.

Mancini’s acting career is progressing well, but as a hedge he is signing up clients to his new management firm.

“I tell people I’m doing a little acting and a lot of acting up,” Mancini said. “I mean, I’ve been blessed to be able to work, but anytime they send you to Mexico to do a movie, I mean, work a few days, have a few days off, and you’re paid to be there, what a scam it is. That’s acting up.”

He has appeared twice on the television series “Who’s the Boss,” starring his friend and ex-boxer Tony Danza, and played a soldier in Steven Spielberg’s “Amazing Stories” anthology.

He has done an exercise video (“Who hasn’t?” he said) based on jump-rope workouts, and in May, the CBS network will air “The Rig,” a made-for-television film in which Mancini plays a tough convict with a short fuse and quick fists who earns $1,000 a day on a dangerous oil rig in Mexico.

“The hardest thing about it was learning to pull punches. My whole life I was taught to follow through,” he said.

Although he has never had any formal theater or business training, the same endearing personality and fast-talking street smarts that marked his championship reign won him quick acceptance in the entertainment industry.

On many afternoons Mancini can be found in one of several Beverly Hills bistros, not far from his Brentwood condominium, sipping iced capuccino with movie stars and famous athletes or browsing in a Beverly Hills jewelry store on Rodeo Drive.

Mancini said he gets tips on acting from his best friend, Mickey Rourke, star of such films as “Year of the Dragon” and “9 1/2 Weeks,” but adds: “I’m a true believer of on-the-job experience.”

A brawler who got by in the ring more on desire than talent, Mancini believes the same drive that won him the title at the age of 21 will carry him wherever he wants to go.

“My name might open the door but I have to walk in. And one thing I’ve understood from the beginning, it has a double-edged sword. My name is going to open doors, but if I mess up, I’m going to get hurt worse than anybody,” he said.

But he has no fear of failure, and feels no pressure when auditioning. “It’s not like millions of people watching me get knocked on my behind, and I’ve had that happen. So going to read for a few people is nothing to me,” Mancini said.

He lost his last two fights, both to reigning champion Livingstone Bramble. He gave up his title in the first bout, in June 1984, suffering a savage beating that put him in the hospital. He feels he won the re-match eight months later, but alleges Bramble’s manager “had the judges in his pocket.”

He says talk of him starring in a sequel to “I Walk In Your Shadow,” which was produced by Sylvester Stallone and based on a poem Mancini wrote at the age of 14, is just that.

He has turned down multi-million-dollar offers to fight again, saying his treatment by WBA officials in the Bramble rematch “took my heart away from the game.”

Wearing a diamond in his left ear, a gold crucifix around his neck and sunglasses that barely hid a thick scar over his left eye, Mancini said he was most proud of his financial success in a ring career of 29 wins and three losses.

“Since day one, all my earnings, and I had some big earning years, after all my taxes, and I got hit big in the big-earning years, after all my jewelry, and I’ve got a lot of good jewelry, my home in California, my home in Youngstown, my car, clothes, everything, I’ve kept 73% of my money, which is unheard of in this business,” he said.

He said he has litle faith in the business of films and television. “I don’t have a whole lot of confidence in this business, to tell you the truth. You can’t control your own destiny. Look at Mickey (Rourke), I think he’s one of the best actors around, and he gets one picture a year. Go figure it.”

Mancini said he wanted something more sustaining, so he formed a management firm with his attorney and accountant that will guide the careers of entertainers and athletes in the way Mancini’s was handled. He has signed up a woman comedian and plans to close deals with two All-America football players about to turn professional and a couple of rock bands.

“I’ve got a lot of friends in the business, a lot of contacts in Las Vegas, and with my public relations outfit and corporation, I can help these people. I’m not in it for the money. I could live off the interest like I always dreamed of. I’m in it because I think it’s a challenge for me, a chance to help somebody else live the way they always wanted,” he said.

If he needed the money, he said, he could call a promoter and get a fight booked in a month.

“People always ask me would you come back if you were offered ‘x’ amount of dollars. I say, I’m not a prostitute. The day before I made my decision, I was offered a $3 million fight. I turned it down. They couldn’t believe it. The promoters thought I was nuts.”