This content is protected Last time I heard (1983) he was just about blind and had something with Amway going but have not heard anything since. Anyone know how he has fared since retiring?
He's doing fine Rooster. His loss of sight was just a temporary. He's currently training fighters from scratch and implementing Leonard's style in almost all of them.
First thought here is where have you been since 1983? In the book Four Kings the author tells a story of SRL losing his job calling fights. Apparently, he was supposed to attend a tennis (or baseball?) match with some station big wheels. Instead, after a night on the town, he gave the 2 tickets he had to 2 prostitutes. The girls turned up to the tennis all slutty & half dressed and embarrassed the big wheels so much that Ray got told not to come back to work!
Yes. This is what is currently known of him. Seales, the only gold medalist out of the 72 olympics was actually a jr welter but upon turning pro, turned middleweight soon after. How soon after I cannot say but he did face Marvelous Marvin, the middleweight extraordinare, twice in just his second year. I'd say he probably needed more careful mangement. Maybe they picked the wrong division for him to compete in. As to who thumbed him that is still a mystery.
..............I knew him fairly well when I was boxing out of the Tacoma Boy's Club, back in '85, '86. Ray was around the gym constantly, but sadly a bit of an unwanted presence. His regular gig was as an Amway salesman; you know, the guys that get other guys to sell bull**** cleaning products and stuff like that door to door, or at least used to. Kind of a pyramid-scheme thing. He was doing that at the time. His eyes looked in awful shape then, both clouded over with cataracts. He'd just kind of hang out in the gym yelling encouragement to this young kid or that, probably preferring to be yelling the words at the gym's best fighters, but it was clear he wasn't wanted around by the big-time trainers there, so he commisserated with those he could; the lower-rung guys like me. Personally, I thought it was cool; I'd read about him quite a bit and knew he fought my hero (Hagler) three times, and held him to a draw once. I also knew he was an Olympic gold medalist. I thought it was sad and didn't speak well of our gym that a guy that had accomplished more than any of these mouthy hot shots in the gym then was treated like a leper, but it was the only gym around and it did have a hell of a pedigree. So I stayed, and got to talk with Seales from time to time. He was always encouraging to us; I remember the first sparring session I ever had; I essentially got my ass handed to me, and instead of going over to the winner and patting HIM on the back, I was his first stop. He stopped me, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "don't let this get you down. You gonna be here tomorrow, ain't you? You'll be okay." ........Meanwhile, the trainers were talking with my conqueror, smiling and giving him high fives and leaving me to find my own way. That meant a lot. So I did come back the next day and the next week I sparred once again with the same guy that embarrassed me the first go-round. I fought more aggressively, reliving what had happened the first time and what I thought I had to do in the "rematch." I had him bloodied and backing up, and they had us stop sparring after two rounds instead of the three we'd done the first week. I was beaming as I stepped down from the ring, and looked over at Ray, standing off to the side a ways. He just smiled back and nodded assent, as if to say, "see? Told ya." So yeah, Ray Seales loomed pretty large in my brief boxing life. I hope he's well.
