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Give him 10 fights as a pro and he'd be ready to start moving up,' Dundee said on Mercer's potential as a pro. 1988 Olympians, Angelo Dundee, a legendary trainer, chose Ray Mercer and Andrew Maynard, as the most likely to develop into world champions after they would have turned into professionals: 'Mercer's 27, but that's not too old. Going to the Olympic Team, he was one of the most highly regarded American Olympic boxers. Europe match-up, Mercer with a hard right to the nose turned it into a ' No mas!' fight for Yugoslavian Željko Mavrović. Cuba match-up, Mercer twice staggered Félix Savón, but was impeded from doing further damage by questionable intervention by the Cuban referee, Alfredo Toledo. He won the 1988 United States amateur heavyweight championship. My plans are to stay healthy, and I need to do well in international competition prior to the Olympics to build confidence.' 'Right now, I want to be the 'woodwork' man.

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His next step was to apply for the all-Army boxing trial camp and win a spot on the Army team. In summer of 1988 he again won the inter-service heavyweight championship. ) As he served with USAREUR, for that reason in 1986-1987 Mercer had several international bouts in Germany, he also competed internationally at Western Europe open tournaments.

When he was reassigned to Baumholder, he won three USAREUR crowns while carrying the banner for V Corps (he won the USAREUR Championship less than a year after his first amateur fight. 'After that, I won the VII Corps novice and open championships and was runner-up at U.S. He won a battalion box-off and then won the brigade championship. He first boxed in organized competition in 1983 at Schweinfurt, West Germany. I told Hank, you won't see me until the Olympics', he said. The training was not a sacrifice I wanted to make. But in 1985, when Army Coach Hank Johnson sought to recruit Mercer for a stateside training camp for the 1988 Olympics, Mercer turned down the offer. Army and inter-service heavyweight champion, along with Wesley Watson, who was inter-service superheavyweight champion (Mercer later beat Watson in professionals). I figured the other guy learned the moves, so could I.' He learned quickly enough, winning military titles and a United States Amateur Boxing Federation title. The beginnings were tough, 'I came back from that first day of sparring with a bleeding nose and my lips swollen. While he had street fights as a youth, it wasn't until he was offered a chance to avoid a 30-day field exercise by serving as a sparring partner for the post's heavyweight champion, which in winter of 1984, with the wind-chill factor driving temperatures below zero, was quite an opportunity, that he found a sanctioned way to use his aggression. Mercer said he had never even put on a pair of gloves until after he enlisted, 'The Army taught me everything I know about boxing,' explained Mercer. Mercer started boxing at the age of 23 while serving in the U.S. Mercer served with the USAREUR, V Corps, infantry, he was stationed with Company D, 1st Battalion, 39th Infantry, in Baumholder, West Germany. After graduating from Richmond County Military Academy in Augusta, Georgia, he coasted for a year before enlisting in the Army.

Mercer played linebacker at high school in Hanau, didn't plan to go for a college education. My father had a good life in the military. We'd go for deer, rabbit and squirrel at Fort Benning. With my father, I was fishing by the age of nine and hunting by fourteen. I'd come home and play Go-Karts or shoot BB guns or ride choppers. My father tried to get me to play some kind of sports. When he was in the field, whether at Fort Benning, Georgia, or in Germany, I'd take advantage of my mother and act up. I had a tough time in school until my father, Raymond, he was a mechanic in the military, got me straight. He later recalled:Īs a kid I was a little hardheaded. Mercer, being a son of a retired Army NCO Raymond Mercer Sr., grew up as a military brat in Fort Benning, Georgia, and later in Hanau, West Germany.

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