(2 of 2)
Ramos knew he had it when he was 13. He only weighed 120 Ibs. and stood 5 ft. 6 in. tall, but he knocked out a 22-year-old with his potent left hook. By the time he was 14, he had won 24 fights, 18 of them knockouts, in matches arranged by the various gyms where he worked out. Ramos also maintained a 79 average at Lehman High School and somehow managed to win five letters in other sports: track, cross-country, swimming, basketball and football. He has a lot to thank his mother and father for. "She's tough, my mom," says Ramos. "And my dad still screams at me when I come home late. Sometimes he locks me out."
When not studying or working out, Ramos is likely to jog through his neighborhood at daybreak. In the gray light at the corner of Brook Avenue and East 138th Street, where he sometimes used to hang out in the winter with Popeye, Angel and Shorty, he can see up to 15 buildings that have been torched or abandoned. Despite the wreckage, according to Ramos, Brook Avenue is still the struttin'est street in The Bronx. On fine days it over flows with hip dudes, good music and fine reefer.
Further on is the "Park," a summer hangout. It is two blocks wide and looks like a maximum-security recreation facility in a tough prison: sour, graffiti-covered concrete and steel mesh fencing. The two basketball courts are always jammed, and there are always a couple of broken syringes on the ground. On summer evenings it throbs and shakes as hundreds of teen-agers bop ecstatically to deafening Latin rock.
His jogging ends when he runs up seven flights and, not even breathing hard, reaches the tiny, immaculate apartment where he lives with his parents and two sisters. The place bursts with Ramos' trophies and medals. A framed newspaper clipping on the wall notes that Ramos was president of his high school class, that he played a "sensitive" Romeo in the school play and was voted the most popular boy when he graduated last year.
Ramos seems to be more | than just another ghetto-bred | boxer with the messianic conviction that he will be a champion. He has a magic that seduces. Shelly Finkel, the successful rock promoter, spotted Ramos four years ago. He has shepherded the young fighter since he was 16, and will manage him when he turns pro. Finkel, who promotes people like Olivia Newton-John and Billy Joel and bands like the Who and Yes, says he plans to build Ramos' income outside boxing, "so he can go to university and study acting." Says Finkel: "He is not a gladiator. We want to keep that smile on his face."
That may not be easy. Ramos has much to forget. Friends of his die every month from overdoses, or are murdered. Many are in prison. He has special nightmares about Candyman. "He was a boxer like me," Ramos recalls. "He was set up trying to rip off a dealer and shot five times in the chest. The funeral was very, very sad. They put Candyman's gloves and robe on top of his coffin. When my mother and sisters saw him, they saw me lying there. "