Ray 'Boom Boom' Mancini vs George Feeney
'One of My Toughest Fights....he's definitely a world-class fighter' - Ray Mancini
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Mancini fought 10 bruising rounds against Feeney to take home a slim but unanimous decision in his first match since the bout that caused the death of Duk Koo Kim almost three months previous.
The 138-pound Mancini, the World Boxing Association lightweight champion, was cut above the left eye in the seventh round of the nontitle bout and was seriously rocked in the eighth by the durable 134-pound Briton. ''Scary,'' Mancini muttered with undisguised relief as he was led out of the packed, 1,500-seat arena with his victory.
After the fight, Mancini did not shy from the subject of Kim's death. ''With everything that happened, I was under a lot of pressure,'' Mancini volunteered. ''I'm very happy it's over, very relieved. I need mental relaxation now. I had a lot on my mind before this fight.''
'One of My Toughest Fights'
Throughout Mancini's training here, his manager, David Wolf, insisted that Feeney, the British lightweight champion, was a worthy adversary who would provide a real test despite his 15-8 record. It seemed like the typical hype, but the bout proved Wolf right. Feeney took Mancini's left jabs to the body and his sharp combinations to the head and responded in kind, never really looking shaky himself until the very end of the final round.
''That was definitely one of my toughest fights,'' said Mancini, who brought his record to 26-1, ''and I hope nobody's surprised. I said from the beginning that this man was tough and would bring out the best in me. He's definitely a world-class fighter. He definitely has a champion's heart.''
The three judges scored the fight 98-96, 98-96, 98-95, respectively. With the victory, however slim, secured, Wolf said he was pleased it had been such a trying contest. ''This was the fight we prepared for,'' the manager said. ''We knew the guy took a tremendous punch. Now we go back to a title defense without any doubts at all. If it had been an easy fight, we'd still have all those questions.''
The questions that Wolf felt were answered dealt with Mancini's reaction to having delivered the fatal blows to Kim in Las Vegas, Nev., last Nov. 13. Would his fighter be reluctant to pursue an advantage, Wolf wondered, if he were inflicting damage to his opponent?
''He finished hard,'' Wolf said. ''He didn't lay off when he had him hurt. We're right back on course.'' But Mancini was hurting in the seventh and eighth rounds. Feeney cut him above the eye in the seventh and landed blows to the head that opened the cut and wobbled Mancini in the eighth.
The fight was a physical spectacle, but the hours before were a different spectacle, with the excitement beginning Saturday night when 125 Mancini boosters arrived from Bagheria, the Youngstown, Ohio, fighter's ancestral home in Sicily. If they were weary from the 25-hour train journey, it was impossible to tell. Until late in the evening, the lobby of the hotel here rocked with accordion music and shouts of ''Boom Boom,'' the only English words the Sicilians knew.
Mancini was at the center of the tumult, hugging and kissing his great uncle and his cousins, signing autographs and posing for photographs. There were also about 50 people from the Youngstown area here for the fight, including Mancini's parents.
Throughout the afternoon, Mancini's handlers tried to send him up to his room for a nap. Instead, he greeted the Ohio contingent, taught his father to say ''mio piacere'' -''my pleasure to meet you'' - and told his mother about attending mass this morning with the Bagheria relatives at an 11th-century church in St. Vincent.
''He's not just a good boxer, he's a good boy,'' one of the waiters told the fighter's parents in halting English. Arena Conditions Protested
Meanwhile, Wolf was pacing the lobby in distress and threatening to call off the fight. The conditions at the arena, he said, were horrendous: The ring unsteady, the ropes too slack and the padding on the floor too thin. His diatribe seemed a bit theatrical, and he conceded he was especially sensitive to potentially unsafe conditions in the wake of the Kim fight.
While Wolf fumed, Murphy Griffith, the trainer, and Bob Arum, the promoter, walked down the snowy hill to check out the problems at the arena. The ropes would be tightened and the ring steadied, they told Wolf. The padding would have to suffice. The fight would go on.
The Mancini supporters turned out early, filling the arena with Italian songs, more accordion music, and constant cheering for their favorite. They did not get the knockout that they were urging with their chants of ''Mancini, Mancini,'' but they were still happily waving their banners at evening's end.
(by Jane Gross)
