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lightweight titles in June of that year by going to London to face Scotland’s Jim Watt and beating him by decision. He’d done the same in November 1974, going into WBA featherweight titleholder Ruben Olivares’ adopted backyard of Los Angeles and beating him in one of history’s greatest 126-pound title fights, then again in 1978, going into WBC junior lightweight titleholder Alfredo Escalera’s hometown of Bayamon, Puerto Rico, and stopping him in the 13th round. In 1974, days after the win over Olivares, I attended a luncheon thrown for Arguello by the top boxing writers in the New York and New Jersey area. Among those present were Sugar and fellow future Hall of Famers Dave Anderson, Budd Schulberg, Bill Gallo and Michael Katz. The luncheon was at the famed Gallagher’s Steakhouse in New York City. I met Arguello – nicknamed “El Flaco Explosivo” (“The Explosive Thin Man”) – outside the steakhouse, arriving at the same time his limo was pulling up. As a much younger version of the boxing junkie I still am, I recognized Arguello right away. I smiled and extended my hand. He smiled and extended his as well. “Felicidades, Campeón,” I said. Excitedly, he began speaking to me in Spanish. I held up my hands. “Poquito español,” I said. “Muy poquito.” He laughed. “What is your name?” he asked slowly in English. “Randy,” I said. “Randy Gordon.” “Hello, Randy Gordon,” he replied. “I am Alexis. Alexis Arguello.” He broke his name up the way I broke up mine. Then he said, reaching for the words, “You are the first people (sic) I have met in Nueva York.” He put his arm around my shoulders and we walked into Gallagher’s. I held the door for him. Later, when he stood to say a few words to the media gathered at the long table, he spoke with assistance
from a translator. When he said, pointing to me, “I want to thank my new friend, Randy Gordon, and all of you for this beautiful honor,” all eyes turned to me, wondering who the heck I was. Bert Sugar told me it was the first time he heard my name. When the luncheon ended, Arguello walked over and asked, “Can we stay in touch, my new friend?” “Of course,” I said. I wrote my home number on a piece of paper. He folded it neatly and placed it in the pocket of the crisp, white shirt he was wearing. He gave me a hug and said, “Vaya con Dios. It is one of the nicest things you can say to someone. It means ‘Go with God.’” I repeated it to him. We hugged. A dvance the clock five years. Sugar and I were now together at The Ring. A mutual friend – journalist Dave Wolf – told us about an 18-year-old lightweight from Youngstown, Ohio, he was managing. “The kid can fight,” Wolf told us. “He has a crowd-pleasing style. Plus, his story is going to catch on quickly.” Basically, the young man wanted to win the title shot that had escaped his father nearly 40 years earlier when World War II took him away from his rising boxing career and put him into the U.S. Army. The father was former lightweight contender Lenny “Boom Boom” Mancini. His son, Ray, complete with the nickname, intended to fulfill that dream. So, at The Ring, as we revamped the magazine and restored respectability to the ratings, we also followed some of the greatest fighters ever to put on boxing gloves and covered some of boxing’s true classic battles. In the time since I first met him, Arguello had gone 24-1, losing only a 10-round majority decision to Vilomar Fernandez in Madison Square Garden in July 1978. Over those five years, Arguello had fought five times in New York and several more times in Las Vegas and California. I attended all of them. Along the way, he became my best friend. He visited me and Bert every time
he came into New York City. The morning after Arguello’s junior lightweight title defense against Rolando Navarrete in April 1980, I received a call from him. By this time, he was speaking English quite well. He even had me speaking Spanish. After I congratulated him on his title defense, he said, “That’s it for 130 [pounds]. I am going to move to lightweight. I am going after Jim Watt.” “Immediately?” I asked him. “No, I’ll have a few fights at 135 first,” he replied. Meanwhile, “Boom Boom” Mancini was on his way to fulfilling his dream. By the end of 1979, he was 4-0. In 1980, manager Wolf put him on a pace unheard of today. Mancini fought 12 times that year, winning every bout, 10 by knockout. Three more victories followed in 1981, including back-to-back wins against contenders Al Ford and Jorge Morales. On June 20, 1981, Arguello captured the lightweight title by winning a 15-round unanimous decision over Watt. One month later, Mancini faced top contender Jose Luis Ramirez, who was 71-3 coming in. Eight months earlier, Ramirez had lost a 10-round split decision to Arguello. A win by Ramirez would land him a rematch against Arguello. A win by Mancini would match him against “El Flaco Explosivo.” “I knew how much the Ramirez fight meant,” Mancini told The Ring recently. “I was fired up!” Mancini overpowered Ramirez, winning almost every round of their 12-round bout. The young warrior was now next in line for a shot at his dream fight. T op Rank was waiting with the date: October 3, just two and a half months later. Sugar and I planned to be ringside for the fight. However, only Sugar went. Days before the fight, ESPN assigned me to cover the fight, not from ringside, but from their Bristol, Connecticut, studios as co-host alongside one of their top anchors – Bob
Ley – on a new segment ESPN was calling SportsCenter Plus. I phoned both of the fighters to tell them I would not be ringside. Both of them understood. “You have a job to do,” said Arguello. “But I know you’ll be watching and reporting.” During our phone call, Arguello asked me, knowing of my friendship with Mancini, “How will you handle your emotions? You have two friends going against each other on a world stage.” “I always put my heart in the ring when you fight,” I said. “I do the same with Ray. I love you guys and I know you have the utmost respect for each other. Still, you guys have a job to do. He will try to take your head off and you will be looking to do the same to him. I will have to find a way to put my feelings on the side and just be a reporter. I will be as professional as I can be. It will be the toughest assignment I have ever had.” I ended our call by saying, “Vaya con Dios.”
“Vaya con Dios,” he replied. “You’re gonna have a great fight to report about,” Mancini told me, adding: “That I promise.” He was so right. For 10 rounds, it was an all-time great lightweight title bout. Going into the 11th round, one judge had Arguello slightly in the lead. Another had Mancini the same way. A third judge had it even. Then the greatness of Arguello took over. “Arguello created distance,” Mancini told The Ring. “He found separation. I had made him miss a hundred right hands. But it only takes one! When he created distance, that was the key to him taking over.” Combinations from long range began landing on Mancini in Round 12. A one-two combo buckled Mancini’s legs, causing his knee to briefly touch the canvas seconds before the end of
line, both men dug deep in Round 14. “Arguello was a 15-round fighter and showed it,” Mancini recalled. “He began to surgically hit me with any punch he wanted.” A combination, ending with a right cross to the head, dropped Mancini. He arose almost immediately, but referee Tony Perez stopped the bout at 1:44. On ESPN, I told the audience they had just watched more than a lightweight title fight. I told them it was a boxing classic. That night, I spoke on the phone with Arguello in his hotel room. “My God, is that young man tough!” Arguello said. “You know my heart, Randy. Mancini might be the only fighter I know whose heart is bigger than mine.”
Arguello-Mancini was a classic battle between high-class sporstmen .
the round. “I was buzzed but made it to the bell,” Mancini recalled. ”Between rounds, Griff (trainer Murphy Griffith) told me to take off the 13th and gather myself, be more defensive.” Mancini did exactly that and was successful doing it. But the fighter in Mancini took over in Round 14. “I was there to win the title, not survive,” said Mancini. “I was there to beat the best, and Arguello was the best.” So he resumed living up to his nickname. With the fight still close and on the
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