Book documents Ray ‘Boom Boom’ Mancini’s tragic odyssey

His sales pitch to Ray Mancini went like this:

You will have no control over the manuscript. You won't get paid. I will be everywhere you don't want me to be, all the painful places - your divorce, the death of your brother, Duk Koo Kim. But if you want a book about fathers and sons, something to show your kids why things turned out the way they did, then I'm your guy."

"He thought about it for a minute," Mark Kriegel said, "and was like, 'OK, I'm in.' "

Fans of Mancini and boxing and the emotional and often intricate relationships between father and sons should be glad for it today.

Kriegel, the best-selling author of biographies on Joe Namath and Pete Maravich, has produced his most poignant work yet with "The Good Son," the story of Mancini and how one November afternoon in 1982 at Caesars Palace destroyed the image so many owned of a championship fighter nicknamed "Boom Boom."

Of how one tragic moment in boxing history some 30 years ago altered the course of two families across oceans and generations.

Kim never regained consciousness after going down in the 14th round against Mancini and died four days later. Three months later, Kim's mother took her own life. Mancini never would be the same, taking years to understand what happened and how there never would be a time when he wasn't reminded, and in many ways haunted, by the deaths.

Ultimately, Mancini came to peace with those demons, helped by meeting Kim's son, Jiwan, last year, chronicled at the end of the book when a 29-year-old South Korean in a blazer and polo shirt, a dental school student, came face to face with the man who ended his father's life in the ring.

"I think meeting Kim's son gave Ray a measure of closure," Kriegel said. "I think he needed it, but I think Jiwan needed it more. Looking back, by agreeing to the meeting, it was as if Ray was taking one last punch for Kim. Jiwan needed to bless Ray with his forgiveness more than Ray needed to be forgiven.

"It was not an easy meeting. How do you know how to act or what to say to a guy whose father died at your hands?"

There is a kinship between author and fighter that neither could have imagined developing when Kriegel first thought of chronicling Mancini's journey, when he and the boxer and actor Ed O'Neill first sat for dinner at an Italian restaurant in Santa Monica, Calif.

Kriegel kept coming back to that place in the strip mall, eating, drinking, watching fights with his two new friends, convinced the ghosts swirling around Mancini best would be exorcised by telling his story.

It is a voyage about redemption, about Mancini winning the world lightweight championship and fulfilling the dream his father couldn't as a contender whose boxing career was cut short when he was seriously injured in World War II.

It is one of triumph, death, absolution and contentment, about charismatic, wounded fathers and the sons who thought them heroes.

About a writer whose father was diagnosed with polio at age 11 in 1944 and a boxer whose father was hit by a mortar shell in France that same year, about the bond they unknowingly shared through men who raised them.

Most of all, the book proves true Kriegel's contention that boxing works better in the world of popular culture than it does as, well, boxing, that the tales about it told through words and movies and documentaries remain some of the most fascinating ones sport offers.

"Writing the book about Pete (Maravich) was also personal for me when it came to fathers and sons, but different than this," Kriegel said. "Pete's father set out to build the perfect basketball machine through his son and just about succeeded but damaged everyone in the process.

"With Ray, the motivation came from the son. He decides he's going to seek redemption for his father by winning the title, does everything the right way, and then someone dies in the ring.

"Sometimes you choose the material. Sometimes the material chooses you. That's what happened in this case."

This is Kriegel at his best and Mancini in his most unconcealed form.

Together, it blends into a memorable story.

Kriegel and Mancini will sign copies of "The Good Son" at 7 p.m. Saturday at Barnes & Noble, 2191 N. Rainbow Blvd., Las Vegas 89108.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday on "Gridlock," ESPN 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.