In The Bronx: Campe

By James Wilde

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 campeon 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."

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. "

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