I stopped watching boxing (and all those awful spin-offs) years ago. The only point of the "sweet science" is to inflict serious physical damage on the opponent. But I saw a TV promo for a coming boxing event and it triggered a memory for me of "Lightning" Ray Lampkin, Jr. who I knew more than 44 years ago. A very likable young man.
After the Portland Storm football team crashed and burned, putting me on the bricks, I spent a short time writing sports features for the Portland Oregonian's Sunday magazine. Lampkin was one of my early assignments. Many people were not aware that Ray was the number two lightweight fighter ranked next to World Boxing Association (WBA) champion Roberto Duran. Six months before my interview with Lampkin, in 1975, he had gone 14 rounds with the champion before being knocked out. When he went down his head bounced on the floor of the ring like a basketball. The effects of that beating were still apparent when we talked in Ray's living room. Something about his eyes was a shadow out of plumb.
Ray took to boxing early as a kid growing up in his Northeast neighborhood and he would see his fists as tickets to fame and fortune. Talking about the Duran fight he told me the champ was only one of his problems; his corner was completely disorganized. After a round he would come for a precious couple of minutes rest and his stool wouldn't be there. And then, in the late rounds, his handlers ran out of water. Corner chaos.
"I'm getting half-killed out there," he told me, "and everything in my corner is all (expletive) up."
But he thought he would recover and be all right and all his support people thought so, too. Of course, Ray was their meal ticket, so getting him well was important. Lampkin did live to fight again but the wattage in the lightning was never the same. At the end his record was 32-6-1.
In 2013 at age 65 Ray was bowling with friends when he suddenly keeled over with cardiac arrest. Two brothers in the next lane were quick to spot the problem and they started chest compressions until medical help arrived. They saved Ray's life and it was his most serious challenge since that long ago night in Panama, climbing into the ring with Roberto Duran.
