U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials : Mercer Shows No Mercy, Leads Army’s Assault by Beating Bent

Four summers ago, when amateur boxing people began gathering in Fort Worth for the 1984 Olympic boxing trials, everyone was hearing the same rumor:

“Wait’ll you see the 17-year-old heavyweight out of New York . . . very inexperienced, but a real talent . . . name is Tyson.”

Saturday, on U.S. Army Day in the finals of the 1988 Olympic trials at the Concord Pavilion, it seemed as if another heavyweight prospect had been dropped on the boxing scene.

After Saturday, Ray Mercer is no longer a rumor. This guy can fight.

Ray Mercer is a 27-year-old infantryman, stationed in West Germany. He likes to say: “I’m infantry. That means hard-core Army. I’m a grunt. I charge fast thereto.”

And that’s just how he beat a very good New York heavyweight, Michael Bent, Saturday to win the Olympic trials heavyweight championship. He went after him like he was hitting the beach at Normandy. It was an attack.

He beat Bent with three rounds of non-stop assault punching--nine minutes of trench warfare, throwing bombs with both hands. It was one of the most impressive displays of power boxing seen in the amateurs since Mike Tyson moved up to the pros.

If he beats Bent again next Saturday at Caesars Palace, Mercer will be on his way to the Seoul Olympics.

There were five other Olympic trials champions Saturday, and the final six will be crowned this afternoon. Saturday’s winners:

106 pounds--Michael Carbajal (Phoenix) def. Eric Griffin (Houston), 5-0.

119--Kennedy McKinney (Killeen, Tex.) def. Jemal Hinton (District Heights, Md.), 5-0.

132--Romallis Ellis (Ellenwood, Ga.) def. Lyndon Walker (Washington), 5-0.

147--Ken Gould (Rockford, Ill.) def. Ron Morgan (Cincinnati), 5-0.

165--Anthony Hembrick (Ft. Bragg, N.C.) def. Darin Allen (Columbus, Ohio), 5-0,

201--Mercer (U.S. Army, West Germany) def. Bent (Cambria Heights, N.Y.), 5-0.

If you like your boxing on the explosive side, Mercer-Bent goes into the best-remembered file.

These two traded grenades for three rounds, and neither wilted, although Bent at times seemed about to. A year or so ago, Bent, 22, looked like the favorite for the Olympic team. He’s a superb athlete, well conditioned, a big hitter with more than sufficient boxing skills.

Mercer’s performance Saturday was more than most had expected from him. He’d won the heavyweight title at the national championships last April, but Bent had passed on that tournament and Mercer hadn’t looked exactly Olympian.

All that changed Saturday. A star was born? Probably. With or without the Olympics, this guy will be heard from.

Mercer and three of his Army teammates at the trials this week call themselves The Four Horsemen, all four being in the heavier classes: Robert Salters, the super-heavyweight who meets Riddick Bowe this afternoon; Mercer; light-heavyweight Alfred Cole, who meets Bomani Parker today, and Hembrick, who beat Allen Saturday in the 165-pound division.

When Hembrick entered the ring Saturday in his gold Army uniform, there were little U.S. flags sticking out of each shoe. And when his 5-0 decision was announced, he triumphantly faced his teammates in the audience, raised a taped fist and shouted:

“The Four Horsemen! The Four Horsemen!”

Mercer didn’t take up boxing until 1983, and, his coach says, didn’t really take it seriously until this year.

“He decided a year ago he was going to make the Olympic team and that no one was going to stop him,” Coach Hank Johnson said. “He’s a completely different person now; we’d never seen the intensity, the willingness to pay the price, that he’s showed us this year.”

Mercer, an eight-year Army man who will be discharged in October, is eager to win a gold medal at Seoul and turn pro.

Someone suggested in the post-fight interview that rumor had it that Mike Tyson, not Bent, would be coming to the Las Vegas boxoffs this weekend.

“Good, bring him in,” Mercer said. “The only reason he’s the champ now is because he hasn’t fought me yet.”

Mercer went on the attack at the outset, pounding Bent with his big jab, and frequently adding a right-to-the-ribs chaser. Throughout, he took Bent’s best punches, and shrugged them off.

In the second round, after the referee had cautioned him for a throwing a shoulder into Bent, Mercer showed some inexperience. After action resumed, he suddenly backed up, dropped his hands, and stared at referee John Holaus. As he looked at Holaus, who had made no call, Bent rapped Mercer’s head twice, but again he wasn’t fazed.

“That was my fault,” he said later. “Bent got me low, and I couldn’t understand why the ref hadn’t called it. I should’ve kept fighting instead of worrying about the ref.”

Bent frequently throws low blows, and he lost a point in the third round for another one. But Mercer said his physical condition won this championship, not Bent’s low blows.

“We are in great shape,” he said. “I respected Bent, he has good power. But I knew I had him in the middle of the third round, I could feel him start to fade. I was just stronger.”

In the light-heavyweight bout on Army Day, Hembrick and Allen also received a standing ovation for an exciting bout. An 82nd Airborne communications specialist, Hembrick talked bravely afterward about a repeat performance at the boxoffs.

“He’ll be the most noteworthy opponent at the boxoff, I’m sure of it,” he said. “But I hate to tell him it’ll turn out the same way for him, maybe worse.”

But that’s not the history of these two. Hembrick is 0 for 4 against Allen in boxoffs, for the 1986 U.S. world championships and the 1987 Pan American Games teams.

The USA Amateur Boxing Federation has a tough call to make in picking a boxoffs opponent for trials bantamweight champion Kennedy McKinney of Killeen, Tex. One of the bright young stars of boxing is 18-year-old Jemal Hinton of District Heights, Md. In a mild upset, he was beaten badly by McKinney Saturday. The decision: Do you bring Hinton to the boxoffs, since he made the trials finals, or do you bring the much more experienced Michael Collins, who is a three-time national champion and a Pan Am Games silver medalist, but who also lost here in the semifinals, to McKinney?

Junious Hinton, Jemal’s father/coach, thinks he knows what’s coming down, and he didn’t seem too unhappy about it Saturday.

“Michael Collins has lost three bouts since 1983,” he said. “I expect them to invite Collins. He’s a very experienced boxer.”

Ken Gould (147), Romallis Ellis (132) and Michael Carbajal (106) won as expected Saturday, although Carbajal had the closest call. He was a 5-0 winner, but three judges had him by only a point against Griffin.

Gould won going away and, in typical Gould style, put everyone to sleep. He knows how to win amateur tournaments. Count on him for a medal in Seoul. He dances in on opponents, lashes out quickly with a flurry of body punches, then dances away. Or he’ll wait, wait, wait . . . then jump in with a quick, harmless--but scoring--one-two, and dance away again.

Hey, it works.

“This is about victories, right?” he said afterward, when asked whether the boos from the crowd disturbed him. “I was staying away from his power, that’s all. Besides, when I go out of boxing I’m going out without slurring my words and with all my marbles.”