Van Nuys’ Bray Eager to Make Boxoff Memorable

For nearly 10 years now, complete strangers have been walking up to John Bray and punching him in the head. He does not care much for this. He even admits that the frequent poundings have, at the age of 19, caused his memory to deteriorate.

He dislikes it so much, in fact, that he says he has made a major decision: He will only put up with this sort of thing for another decade or so.

Bray, of Van Nuys, is one of the top amateur heavyweight boxers in the nation. Tonight, he will fight in the Goodwill Games Boxoff at The Mirage Hotel, hoping to earn a berth on the 1990 U.S. Goodwill Games team.

After that, Bray plans to gear up for a crack at the 1992 Olympics. And then, he will turn pro and buy a large truck with which to haul all of his money to the bank.

But first, there is this other matter that Bray must deal with, this frustrating loss of, loss of . . . oh, this loss of memory.

“I’m just 19, and it bothers me,’ he said Thursday after a workout. “Sometimes, my memory is really shot. It’s little things. My mom will tell me something a month later I’ve forgotten what she told me. It happens a lot. Boxing takes its toll, there’s no doubt about that.

“I definitely feel the effects, almost everyday. Sometimes it’s the headaches in the morning, sometimes it’s the memory. And I’m afraid of getting punchy, like these old boxers you see on TV who can’t hardly talk anymore. Let’s be honest. You get hit on the side of the head for 10 or 20 years, something is going to go wrong up there.”

So why does a bright 19-year-old, knowing that he might end up talking like Rocky--or even like Sylvester Stallone--pursue such a dangerous career? Well, if fans stopped applauding him after each victory, and if boxing promoters told him there was no chance he’d ever get rich from it, he wouldn’t.

But until that happens, you’ll find Bray in a boxing ring almost everyday, taking blow after blow to his head.

“There’s just nothing else like it,” he said. “I imagine winning the Super Bowl is a big thrill for football players and winning the World Series is a big thrill for baseball players. But the fans are cheering the team , not any one person.

“In boxing, when you hear the cheers you know they are not for anyone else. They are for you. I can’t describe the thrill that has been for me.”

And about the money. Well, the world is not a perfect place, and boxing promoters and boxing fans will just about batter their own heads against a ring’s corner post at the arrival of a talented white heavyweight boxer. It is a fact. They will even get ga-ga over a white heavyweight with limited talent. Take Gerry Cooney. Please.

“I want to stay in the amateurs through the Olympics,’ Bray said. “Because I can see myself one day with a gold medal around my neck as the Olympic heavyweight champion. And what do you figure that is worth? The first white heavyweight to come along in a very long time with some real talent, with a real shot at being the champion. I figure that is worth millions of dollars. Many millions.”

Bray is correct. And toward that goal, the 6-foot-3, 195-pound Bray will step into the ring tonight to fight James Johnson of Lowell, Mass. The winner will be one of two U.S. heavyweights to fight in the Goodwill Games, July 28-Aug. 5 in Seattle.

Because of an injury sustained during a bout in Italy earlier this year and his subsequent lack of activity, Bray is ranked fourth among the four heavyweights at the boxoff.

He has never fought against Johnson, who is ranked third by the Amateur Boxing Federation, but a few weeks ago in Colorado Springs he knocked the No. 2 heavyweight, Randal Crippen, senseless. And twice last year Bray fought the current top-ranked amateur, Javier Alvarez, and beat him soundly both times, once in the Olympic Festival and again in the World Championships Boxoff.

“The rankings are a joke to me,” Bray said. “It was a shock to see myself fourth, but everyone here knows. Alvarez is a paper champion. I can beat him any night of the week. They’ll find out.”

Big words for a kid who began boxing as a chubby little fellow and who lost his first four amateur bouts. In the first one, he recalled, he was so afraid he barely threw a punch, choosing instead to just wrap his arms around his face and take a beating.

“I grew up in a pretty bad neighborhood in Van Nuys,” he said. “But I didn’t fight much. I was a momma’s boy. I was 15 before my mother would even let me walk across the street from where we lived. The other side of the street had the gangsters and the drug dealers, and she just wouldn’t allow me to cross that road.”

Luckily, on the same side of the street lived Larry Loy, an ex-boxer who just happened to have a punching bag hanging from a tree in his back yard. At age 8, Bray said, he was introduced to it. He punched it. It didn’t punch back. He liked that.

“From then on, I was really in love with boxing,” he said. “I just loved it.”

After the early setbacks, he began winning with regularity. Trophies and medals from local boxing tournaments are displayed throughout the home he still lives in with his mother and some of his five brothers and sisters. He has only lost a dozen of more than 100 amateur fights.

By 1985, his skills were apparent. He hammered his way into the semifinals of the Junior Olympics at 156 pounds that year and in 1986 he became the Junior Olympic champion at 178 pounds.

In the 1988 Olympic trials, he was ousted on a decision by Tom Morrison, who went on to lose to eventual Olympic heavyweight champion Ray Mercer.

Since then, he has fared well against U.S. competition but has had problems against older, more experienced European fighters. He lost on points to Axel Schulz of West Germany in the World Championships at the end of 1989 and this year has lost decisions to a Yugoslav and an Italian.

He is trained now by Joe Goossen of the Ten Goose Boxing Club in Van Nuys, and Bray said he has never felt so good.

“I could say I was just 18 or whatever, but I really don’t think I was in shape for those international fights,” he said. “I wasn’t ready mentally or physically. Everyone kept telling me how these guys were so good, and had so much experience, that by the time the fight started I was saying to myself, ‘Gee, I can’t beat this guy.’ I just never felt confident. Joe Goossen has given me great confidence now, though, and has gotten me into the best shape of my life.

“I feel like everything has changed. I feel so good, so confident. I realize there is work to do out there now. This is business. The Olympics will be here soon.”

If only these strangers would stop bopping him on the head all the time.