Alex Ramos was weaned on the mean streets of New York City's devastated South Bronx. They are part of his muscle, blood, bones, and his soul as well. In the torched gray wasteland where he lives, Ramos is a glowing ember. When he turns pro this September, he will be the first Puerto Rican ever to come out of the South Bronx, in the classic ghetto way, as a potential campeón de boxeo. He is also the first U.S. Hispanic whom fight promoters regard as good enough to become, sooner or later, a contender for the world middleweight crown. In New York City, where there are 1.9 million Hispanics, most of them fanatic fight fans, Ramos' name is up in lights over the small candy store on his block: RAMOS THE E. 136TH STREET CHAMP. Youngsters in the South Bronx hang his picture in their rooms.
At 19, Ramos is already the world's second-ranking amateur middleweight, a four-time winner of New York's Golden Gloves tournament and a member of the U.S. boxing team since 1978. Despite his youth, Ramos has already had 160 fights. The record: 154 wins, 80 of them knockouts, against six losses, all by decision. He has never been down for the count. Says the dean of fight promoters, Robert Arum: "He's a great banger."
Ramos grew up watching the South Bronx being burned alive, building by building, block by block. When he turned eleven, he was already a man. As initiation to a street gang called the Sons of Satan, he had to run a bloody, 20-yd. gauntlet of flaying fists. "I stole, beat up on people, hit on my teachers," Ramos confesses, "just to prove I was bad and not a punk." He had seen a dozen men shot or stabbed over drug deals and street-corner dice games. He had faced a man with a revolver who was threatening to blow Ramos' brains out because he had thrown a snowball. "By then," he says, "I knew that if you're no good in school or in sports, there's nothing left to do around here but pimp, hustle dope, act in porno movies and, yeah, steal. Everybody's gotta live."
His father, Alejandro Ramos, 45, now a mechanic, was a carnival fighter in Puerto Rico, where he took on all comers for a penny and a bottle of 160-proof rum. When his son was eleven, the father saw that he was something special. In heavily accented English, Ramos Sr. says, "I was as sure my son is El Gallo, a brave fighting cock, as sure as I am that when the priest blesses this house, I'll win at the track the next day." He took Alex to a fight trainer in Manhattan, just before the boy turned twelve.
From then on, young Ramos remembers, "I never had a moment to myself." Almost every day he trained like Rocky, running eight miles each dawn through the shadowy streets, then working out for three hours in the evening at a gym. "This is only the beginning," he says. "I'm already poppin' the gray hairs. You got to be a 24-hour man in this business. I'm only 19, and damn, there are so many things I'd like to be doing." In a rare burst of youthful candor he says, "First thing I'll do when I turn pro is buy the best hi-fi set in the whole wide world." He hesitates, then adds, "No, that will be second. The first is to find my mother a house in Puerto Rico."