Then All The Joy Turned To Sorrow

On Sunday morning, one hour before attending a mass conducted by Father O'Neill at the Tropicana Hotel, Mancini issued a statement on CBS, which had televised the fight. Dark glasses covering his closed left eye, his damaged hand resting on the arm of the couch in his suite, Mancini said, "I'm very saddened. I'm sorry it had to happen, and it hurts me bad that I was part of it. I hope they realize I didn't intentionally hurt him. I don't blame myself, but I can't alienate myself.

"I'm a Christian, and I've been praying that I'll get some answers to questions that have been popping through my mind," Mancini said softly. "I have to rely on my faith to get me through this. It could easily have been me, and who is to say that it won't be me next time? I'm not saying I'll retire, but right now I'm not thinking of future fights. I have to see what happens to Mr. Kim. I need time to heal."

This was to be one of the last of Mancini's modest purses—his career earnings were pushed over $1 million by a $250,000 guarantee against 45% of the gross revenue from this fight. Howard Davis was a likely springtime opponent. And then, of course, there was Pryor. Arguello, the only man to beat Mancini, is still the WBC lightweight champion. "I had always pictured myself coming back and doing that to Alexis," Mancini had said while viewing Pryor's destruction of Arguello Friday night. "We'd be interested in Pryor," Wolf said at the time.

Emile Griffith fought 80 times after Benny (Kid) Paret died following their fight on March 24, 1962. Griffith was 24 at the time of the Paret bout, a career fighter comfortably lost in his craft. Is Mancini, still impressionable at 21 and a young man for whom "money is no god," different? "They are both sensitive individuals," said Gil Clancy, CBS boxing analyst and former manager of Griffith, who happens to be the nephew of Mancini's trainer. "It took something out of Emile Griffith," said Clancy. "Griffith got hate mail, but he got encouragement, too. Ray will have to deal with the same things." Murphy Griffith said, "For a while it was doubtful that Emile would ever come back. He was a sensitive man. But time heals. He had to realize that what happened wasn't his will. People say it affected him until the end of his career. I think it did. Man, you don't forget. Some can handle it, some can't. How it will happen in Ray's case, only time will tell. He's got a good head, but a human is a human."

Former heavyweight champion Max Baer never approached a fight with the same intensity following the death of Frankie Campbell soon after their fight in San Francisco on Aug. 24, 1930. Jimmy Doyle died 17 hours after fighting Sugar Ray Robinson for the welterweight crown in Cleveland on June 24, 1947. At a subsequent hearing Robinson was asked whether he knew he had Doyle in serious trouble. "They pay me to get them in trouble," said Robinson.

Mancini's box-office appeal had had nearly everyone who could make the weight calling him to try to get a fight. Despite his 24-1, 19-KO record, Mancini inspired confidence in contenders. Their pre-Las Vegas feelings can be summed up in the words of Hector Camacho, an undefeated junior lightweight from New York's Spanish Harlem. "You can't play Mancini cheap, he's the man right now," Camacho had said the night before the Mancini-Kim fight. "He's strong, he'll beat on you, but when the time comes he won't knock me out. He's the guy that will make me. He will make me. He's good, but he don't have that, you know, that greatness."

"Look, I know people either think I'm a bum or a superstar," Mancini had said. "I don't care what they think. I know where I am. Somewhere in between." Later, just before he'd heard the news of Kim's condition, Mancini decided something. "This badge of honor," he said, studying his face in the mirror. "Well, ugly as it is, I'm proud of it." Then the nightmare came. Now there are only questions with no simple answers.