by David P. Greisman
 
Sports follow a family dynamic, one backyard, one ball field, one television set, one generation at a time. From parent to child, fingers learn to find laces on pigskin and seams on a baseball, a familial bond forming an affection for athletics.
 
Raymond Serrano was an eight-year-old one generation removed from the Sweet Science. His father, Ramon Serrano, had been in the sport, and his uncle, Ben Serrano, boxed, too, once defeating future middleweight titlist Doug DeWitt.
 
Sports follow a family dynamic. Ray Serrano would soon step into the ring himself.
 
It wasn‘t quite love at first sight.
 
“I used to be real fat – like, chubby,” Serrano, now 19, said in an interview earlier this week. “Training was just hard. There’s a lot of discipline. At first I didn’t like all that.”
 
But he kept at it. Serrano started traveling to larger amateur tournaments. The Philadelphia native won the 2005 Junior Olympic championship and did the same with the Pennsylvania Golden Gloves in 2006. Success can change a person. In Serrano’s case, winning had long since turned him from a kid who boxed into a kid boxer.
 
“I like fighting, win or lose,” Serrano said. “Getting hit, it wasn’t a problem for me.”
 
Of course, Serrano prefers dishing out punishment over taking it. He turned pro in late 2007, signed with Joe DeGuardia’s Star Boxing soon thereafter, and in eight fights he has gone undefeated, knocking out five of his opponents. None of those knockout victims made it out of the first round.
 
“My decision to turn pro, I went to the Olympic trials and I lost by a couple points,” Serrano said. “I didn’t want to fight amateur anymore. I wanted to fight for money, too, and turn pro and see what it was like.
 
“So far, it’s been very exciting,” he said. “In Philadelphia, at one event I sold over $5,000 in tickets, over 100 tickets. People come from all over. Your name goes around. You want to look good. You don’t want people to talk bad about you. That motivates you to train harder and harder. And going to all these places is a different experience.”
 
Serrano’s brief career has taken him to venues in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania. He’ll return to Connecticut tonight, fighting for his second time at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville. And he’ll want to look good, too, and not just to maintain his momentum and unblemished record – Serrano is co-headlining on ESPN2’s “Friday Night Fights.”
 
Serrano’s previous national television experience came in May of last year in his sixth pro fight, a first-round kayo of Charles Wade. That was a swing bout, put on the air in the gap between the undercard and feature fights. Tonight will bring more exposure. His opponent is Jay Krupp, a 12-1 fighter who has won eight in a row.
 
If all goes right, the show will serve as Serrano’s introduction to his largest audience yet.
 
“I’m a tough boxer-slash-puncher,” Serrano said. “I can adapt to different styles. I don’t always come in the same. I’m not one-dimensional. I would like to get a knockout. I do go looking for the knockout. The faster, the better. But I’m always in shape to go the distance.”
 
That said, Serrano doesn’t want to stay on the television screen too long tonight. Rather, he wants to leave viewers ready for more.
 
“I’m looking for a knockout. I’m looking to end it early,” he said. “I want everybody to see what Raymond Serrano has. I’m an up-and-coming prospect. I want everybody to see my skills so I can move on to better opportunities.”
 
David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. His weekly column, “Fighting Words,” appears every Monday on BoxingScene.com. He may be reached for questions and comments at fightingwords1@gmail.com