I left Armando Ramos Jr.’s house in the early afternoon. We had just spent two hours chatting about two of his favorite subjects: his teenage daughter, Angelique, and his late father, Armando Ramos Sr., better known to veteran boxing fans as Mando Ramos.
In the corner of Ramos Jr.’s living room is a small memorial. Pictures of Mando Ramos, a former lightweight world champion boxer, plaster the wall. The largest is a gloved Mando, in his stance, face of stone. The smaller photos depict Mando smiling in street clothes, with not a care in the world.
On a small table, sitting below the photo gallery, rests Mando’s WBC Lightweight Championship belt.
Near the end of our conversation, I asked Ramos Jr., 44, what that corner symbolizes. What it means when he walks by it each day. And I could be dreaming, but Ramos Jr. holds back tears when answering, saying it reminds him that his father is watching over his family.
Five minutes later, Ramos Jr. phones me.
“Brantley, I forgot to tell you. Go on YouTube and look up my dad’s fight with a guy named Sugar Ramos.”
I was planning on searching for video of Mando, and I tell his son as much.
“Great,” he answers. “And get ready to see a war like you’ve never seen before.”
• • •
At first glance, Angelique is the spitting image of her father, who is the spitting image of his father. Her lifelong nickname is Cheeks. She says one of her cousins gave her the moniker as a child, on account of her butterball of a body.
Today, Cheeks is as fit as can be. She is in her sophomore year at Millikan High School and in her first season as shortstop for the Rams’ softball team. As a freshman, she played third base.
“She was the best third baseman in the league as a freshman,” Millikan coach Don Harper said. “She’s real deal.”
Harper moved Cheeks to shortstop this season for a laundry list of reasons, one of which is she is the team’s best player and it was time for her to be the leader of the defense. A new challenge would help Cheeks mature quicker and make her more attractive for colleges as a multifaceted player, according to Harper.
New challenges do nothing to faze the Ramos family. Mando Ramos set the precedent for overcoming adversity en route to the top of the boxing world in the ’60s and ’70s.
Ramos, who was born in Los Angeles but raised in Long Beach, became a legend in the area. He attended Poly for two years before dropping out to pursue a career in boxing full-time, turning pro at age 17 in 1965.
In the late ’60s and early ’70s, Mando was one of the hottest boxers in the game and the top attractions in Los Angeles, his first 13 pro fights at the renown Olympic Auditorium in downtown Los Angeles. He won the world lightweight title in 1969 at age 20 in the Los Angeles Coliseum, with a technical knockout of Carlos Teo Cruz. He became the youngest world lightweight champion in history.
He lost the belt before winning it for a second time with a decision victory over Pedro Carrasco in 1971.
“He was the baddest man on the planet,” Ramos Jr. said. “From 1969-72, there was nobody better than him. He was supposed to fight Roberto Duran, but he had issues with alcohol and that fight fell through.”
Issues with alcohol made more than the Duran fight fall through. Mando’s life fell through. His boxing career ended at age 26.
But in 1969, at the peak of his popularity, Mando had his one and only child. And soon after, with Mando’s career being cut short with the challenges of getting – and staying – clean, and Ramos Jr. entering boyhood, Mando was faced with the challenge of being a father.
Little did Mando know, however, the birth of that single son was the greatest – and most rewarding – challenge he could have ever taken on.
• • •
Mando enters the ring first, wearing a bad red robe.
Mando and Sugar shake hands once the latter arrives in the roped square. They’re fighting at the Grand Olympic Auditorium in Los Angeles. The year is 1970 and working the corner for Sugar is Angelo Dundee, who trained Muhammad Ali.
Mando gets the louder ovation.
The winner of the fight will earn a lightweight title shot. Mando is ripped, and from the beginning of the fight, sets the tone by bouncing around, moving in and out. Every shot he lands sends the crowd into an uproar.
“What a battle this is going to be,” says the commentator.
Mando has Sugar wobbled in the beginning of Round 2, but he doesn’t go for the kill. He pot shots Sugar and plays it patient, as if to protect from burning himself out too early in the fight.
The rest of Round 2 is a slugfest. The crowd is already standing and hollering.
Amazingly, by Round 3, the commentators are silent. The sound of each landed punch is drowned by the shrieks of those gawking into the ring, marveling at the battle unfolding before their eyes.
Both men are taking punishment in Round 3, and Mando almost has Sugar on the canvas. Sugar is saved by the bell.
The fight gets more brutal as each round passes, and at the end of Round 5, a cut that opened over Mando’s left eye in the third round is only getting worse. The commentators, who both agree that Mando is winning through five, express a bit of concern.
“Will the eye cut be able to be held together,” says the commentator, “or will Sugar win the fight on that cut?”
• • •
Those cheekbones flare up and Cheeks conjures a wide smile while remembering her grandfather.
“Our relationship was close and it was silly. We always joked around. He would call and say, ‘Your refrigerator’s running. You better go catch it!’ Those little small jokes made me enjoy the time I had with him.”
Cheeks is now 15. She was eight when Mando passed away in July 2008. His death was credited to natural causes.
She and her father remember Mando as a natural born warrior.
“When I see his fights, I’m like, ‘That’s my grandpa right there,’” Cheeks said. “Just seeing him battling back and forth, he had the fight and the drive to win and keep going. I see him do that and I want to do that, too. That motivates me.”
Over his career, Mando tallied 37 wins to go with 11 losses. Of those nearly 40 wins, 23 came by knockout. He was 28-3 in his first 31 fights and five of those losses came during a modest comeback attempt.
But it wasn’t wins and losses that defined Mando. It was his fan-friendly fighting style and demeanor that made the boxer a local celebrity.
“For any kid with a famous father, it would be hard to follow in those footsteps,” Ramos Jr. said. “When I was young, everybody knew him. All my baseball and football coaches, they were happy I was on the team, not only because I was a great athlete, but because I was Mando Ramos’ kid.”
Mando’s career was finished by the time Ramos Jr. could have realized and grasped his father’s popularity, and when Ramos Jr. was set to enter middle school, he moved in with Mando.
The two lived together in Long Beach during Ramos Jr.’s middle and high school years.
“We were best friends. We played golf. We boxed and trained together. We played racquetball at Long Beach City College. I can’t explain it. Because I was the only child, it was more than father and son. It was almost like he was my brother.”
Despite his success in the sport, Mando guided Ramos Jr. in other directions. His dealings with alcohol and drugs, a result of his success, as well as his familiarity with the behind-the-scenes aspects of boxing, made Mando wary of sacrificing his only son to fighting.
“He pushed me against it,” Ramos Jr. said. “He always trained me, but he didn’t want me to go in that direction because of the seedy side of boxing.”
With the help of his father, Ramos Jr. became a longshoreman in his early 20s. He gave Mando his first granddaughter, Brittany, in 1989, followed by his first grandson, Anthony, in 1991.
And a few short years later, in 1998, he gave Mando the gift of his second granddaughter, Angelique.
“I can’t say he had a favorite grandchild,” Ramos Jr. said, “but Angelique was the one he was closest to when it came to athletics.”
• • •
Mando’s jab is a jackhammer, pecking away at Sugar’s concrete chin through Round 6.
Round 7 is Sugar’s best. He’s pounding away at Mando in the corner of the ring. Mando’s corner can be heard yelling, “Grab him!”
Mando doesn’t grab him. He takes every single punch and comes back in spots. And at the end of the round, the men bump gloves, as if in awe of each other.
Mando is boxing more in Round 8. He was never in danger of going down in the seventh frame, but he is clearly averse to absorbing the damage he did just minutes ago.
Round 9, the commentator’s foreshadowing from Round 5 looks to be coming to fruition. A vicious right hand from Sugar causes the referee to pause the action and hail the doctor to the ring to look at Mando’s eye. His eye is a bloody mess, but still, Mando throws up his arms in disbelief.
I’m scared of what Mando might do, to the ref and the doctor, if they try to stop the fight.
The doctor clears Mando to continue and the most exhilarating 15 seconds of the fight ensue. Sugar is looking to close the show by opening the cut even more. Each fighter lands nearly every punch they throw, flush on the face of the other.
Mando seems ready to choose death before defeat.
Round 10, the final round, is as hellacious as its predecessor. Mando survives Sugar’s final onslaughts. The men hug, and we go to a decision.
And with that, I pick my chin up from its resting position on my chest. I’m sweating more than both Ramos’ combined.
Mando wins a split decision, in the best fight I’ve ever seen.
• • •
Aside from looks, Mando, his son and Angelique share something else in common.
“She has my dad’s warrior spirit and so do I,” Ramos Jr. said. “We don’t need help, we can do it. She’s being looked at by all these colleges and that’s because of her. Everything she’s done, she’s earned on her own and with this family.”
Millikan, behind Angelique, is 16-8 and has only suffered one loss in Moore League play.
Harper said that in only her second year on the team, Angelique is the best player on the Rams’ squad.
It’s not news to Ramos Jr.
“Coach Harper was doing a clinic with 8 and under kids years ago and I came up to him with Angelique and told him that this was going to be his best player when she gets to high school,” Ramos Jr. recalls. “And she did it the hard way. Back when she was young, they didn’t have private lessons. It was all us. And we worked and worked and worked. And she had the ability.
“And that’s what my dad always said: ‘If you have good feet, you can be a good athlete. It doesn’t matter what sport it is.’”
That was just one bit of guidance provided by Mando, who attended a majority of Angelique’s softball games before chronic back problems and health issues derailed his ability to watch from the stands.
But when he could attend, he wasn’t just a spectator, according to Angelique. He cared.
“He always told me to have fun and keep my composure throughout the game. I’m really hard on myself, but he would come after one of my games and tell me I did well, even if to me, I didn’t. But he always encouraged me.”
Angelique has heard from several colleges, including Arizona State and Hawaii. Harper is steadfast that Angelique will earn a Division I softball scholarship.
The shadow of her grandfather’s accomplishments doesn’t blanket her sports existence, but she is reminded of it when out with her father, who is still recognized as the son of Mando Ramos.
“I hope to go somewhere and do good things,” Ramos said of the next step in her softball career. “I want to be an All-American and make a name for myself.”
Angelique’s transition to college, as with any family, will presumably be harder on her parents. But Mando’s drive to pursue greatness runs rampant through the Ramos household. There will be no holding Angelique back.
“To strive for your goals and to have a dream and go after it, that was his thing,” said Angelique’s mother, Yvette. “Be the best that you can be.”
• • •
While one of his father’s championship belts is on display for visitors to see, Ramos Jr. keeps another in a safe deposit box. Out of sight but not out of mind.
Ramos Jr. says that to this day, it’s hard for him to visit his father’s old home. His demeanor when speaking of the late champion exudes a longing to have his best friend back.
But in an instance, that demeanor can change. A kiss on the forehead of his youngest daughter, Anissa, while watching Angelique pose for photos with Mando’s belt, is an exhibition of Ramos Jr.’s joy in life. And as he watches his youngest children grow, he has trained himself not to allow the sadness of life without his father gain too much momentum.
He has Mando to thank for that.
“One phrase resonates with me when I see his photo every day. He always said, ‘Keep your chin down and your ass off the canvas.’”
Contact the writer: bwatson@lbregister.comTwitter: @brantley_watson
