By Brent Matteo Alderson
Ray Mercer was a sergeant in the U.S. Army and beat Tommy Morrison for a spot on the 1988 Olympic team. He then went on to knock out all five of his Olympic opponents on his way to the Heavyweight Gold medal in the 88 games in Seoul, Korea. Interestingly, he was assigned to share a room with Riddick Bowe, the U.S. super-heavyweight representative, but during their stay together Mercer requested a roommate change. “We were laying in bed trying to go to sleep and Riddick starts talking about losing and asked me if I ever thought about losing. I didn’t want to hear any of that so I got my stuff and got out of there.”
After winning Gold, Mercer signed with Top Rank and they put his career on the fast track because Ray wasn’t the typical prospect, he was 27 years old, which was old for an American Olympic prospect, especially for someone that had aspirations of being a long term world champ like Ray had.
So Mercer turned professional and knocked out a group of designated knock out victims in spectacular fashion. Then after raising his level of competition a bit, he looked mediocre in lackluster wins over Ossie Ocasio and Kimmuel Odom, but Ray was still a undefeated Heavyweight with a gold medal and knock out power and his popularity increased even more after engaging in a war with Bert Cooper on network television in the summer of 90.
Even though Cooper was starched by Riddick Bowe in two rounds a couple of months later, a motivated Cooper showed up that night against Ray, and Mercer toughed out a decision victory in a really good heavyweight scrap for the NABF title. The win over Cooper set up a WBO title shot against 1984 Olympic Silver Medallist Francisco Damiani in January of 1991 and for 9 rounds the undefeated Damiani boxed the socks of Mercer, out jabbing him, out punching him, and just plain outclassing him, until the 9th round when Ray landed a miracle punch, a left uppercut that seemed harmless, but just grazed the tip of the Italian’s nose, breaking it and putting the Italian down for the 10-count.
The fight set up a fall showdown with the undefeated 22-year old Tommy The Duke Morrison and for three rounds Mercer’s deficiencies were glaring just as they had been during the Damiani bout. Ray was lackluster, lacking any type of imaginative offense and just taking shots, waiting to land a big shot while Morrison tattooed him with shots, pinning Ray in the corner and landing hard hooks and uppercuts. Most heavyweights would have gone down from the combos that Tommy landed, but this was Ray Mercer, an ex-soldier that used to go on 20-mile hikes carrying an M-60 and an assortment of other equipment that weighed between 60 to 80 pounds. Thus taking shots from Morrison for a few rounds wasn’t that bad in comparison to the hardships of military life.
So after taking a beating for the first few rounds, Merciless pinned Tommy against the ropes in the fifth and out of nowhere exploded with a barrage of punches on to the chin of Morrison while Morrison was already anespitized lying against the ropes. To this day along with Vincent Pettway’s knockout of Simon Brown, Ruddock’s knock out of Dokes, and Bob Foster’s brutalization of Quarry, it has to be one of the most graphic knockouts that I have ever witnessed.
A few minutes after the fight was stopped, Morrison was still on his stool, incoherently trying to dodge punches, which were a figment of his unconscious as his trainer was telling him. “The fights over Tommy, the fights over.”
The win automatically catapulted Mercer to the forefront of the heavyweight division because on the very night of the Mercer-Morrison fight, Tyson pulled out of his November date with Holyfield citing a dubious rib injury, which was really an alibi for the fact that Mike wasn’t able to focus and train properly due to his then impending rape trial.
Evander almost got knocked out in his fight with Bert Cooper the following month and didn’t plan on having another fight until June. So in order to bolster his reputation and pad his bank account Mercer signed to fight Larry the Legend Holmes whom had looked awful in his fights prior to the bout with Mercer. Still, Mercer-Holmes had the semi-quasi big fight atmosphere because the boxing world wanted to see another Merciless knockout and almost everyone figured that Ray was going to put the forty-something year old Holmes to sleep in a fashion similar to the way he dealt with Morrison.
Surprise, surprise, Holmes still had good jab and could still pull the trigger on his right and easily boxed his way to an easy decision as he wiggled his butt and yelled, “I’m not Tommy Morrison,” into the cameras. After the fight, Mercer stated, “I need to go back to the gym and learn how to box.”
That’s the thing with Mercer, even though he had a gold medal, he didn’t really start to train seriously until he was in his twenties and people just don’t understand that if you don’t learn something when your young that your never going to be able to internalize things to the point to where they become part of your subconscious, to the point to where your actions in the ring are instinctive. I think that was one of Ray’s problems along with being a little lackadaisical in training.
Look at his fights prior to the Holyfield fight in May of 95, Ray’s jab wasn’t that strong, it wasn’t his primary weapon, but somewhere around the time of the fight with Evander, Ray finally learned how to work his jab. His jab finally came in to it’s own and that’s something that only comes with time. The problem was that when Ray finally came into his own as a fighter, he wasn’t in his physical prime anymore. Still Ray had a great career. He gave Holyfield all he could handle and lost a close competitive 10 round decision in one of those pay-per-view performances that was worth the money. Then a year later he lost another close and somewhat controversial decision to Lennox Lewis in 1996. He rebounded that year with a decision victory over the then streaking Tim Witherspoon, and then his career went into the doldrums.
Promotional, financial, and health problems derailed his career and he wasn’t really active again until 2001 when he was already 39 years old. Ray earned another decent payday in a fight with Wladimir Klitchko in 2002, but by that time Ray was just fighting on memory and his chin, once his greatest asset let him down as it did again this past summer in his fight with Shannon Briggs. Still if you followed Ray Mercer’s career, you have to admit that it was eventful and exciting, and that at his best he had one of the greatest chins in heavyweight history.
Random Notes:
Morales was officially knocked down in the first Barrera fight. It upsets me when so-called boxing experts print wrong information.
The Morales-Pacquiao fight was breath taking and it perturbs me that the fight didn’t receive the acclaim that it merited. Yah, it was one-sided after the first six rounds, but those rounds were magnificent. During the fight I was telling the other writers, “This is as good as it gets.”
It was a great fight and there won’t be too many better ones this year. I lost money on Erik, but I didn’t even care because I had been captivated by the heart and soul of the two warriors in the ring that night.
The best fight that I’ve ever seen live was the Barrera-McKinney fight, followed by Morales-Barrera I, Gonzalez-Sorjaturong, and then Holyfield-Bowe I.
Check out some of the awesome pics from the fight, BoxingScene.com photographer Paul Gallegos is very talented and dedicated to his craft.
I’m hooking up with Martin Castillo this week to do a story for him in Boxing 2006, one of Ring Magazine’s sister publications.
Again, if you get a chance check out the March edition of the Ring. I have the cover story featuring Marco Antonio Barrera, probably Pacquiao’s opponent later this year.
Rocky Marciano might be the most overrated Heavyweight Champ in history. Dempsey would have beaten him and Floyd Patterson might have too if the Rock hadn’t retired. One things for sure, Ali would have stopped him.
Please send any comments to BoxingAficionado@aol.com
