Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini (left) and Delray Rains (Photo courtesy D. Raines)
Delray Raines of Paris, Arkansas is currently in training to make his comeback after an especially disappointing loss. His last fight was in Atlantic City on April 17th of this year when he squared off against Ronald Hearns (25-1, 19 KOs). Ronald is the son of the famous Thomas "Hitman" Hearns.
The 24 year old pugilist suffered a first round KO from a punch that resulted in a fractured cheekbone and a broken nose. Instead of allowing the embarrassing loss to get him down, he has only become more determined to prove that he has what it takes to make it to the top.
Delray is trained by professional boxer / trainer, and Paris native, Stacy "Dr. Goodnight" Goodson.
I spoke with Delray on Thursday evening about his future plans.
LS: How's it going, man?
DR: Pretty good. How you doing, buddy?
LS: Doing good. You had a tough night against Ronald Hearns.
DR: Yeah, I didn't even get to get started.
LS: Well, you're young and you still have a lot of fight left in you, but I know that was a disappointment.
DR: Yeah. I was working up to going through the next door, man, and that just shoved me right down.
LS: Well, that don't mean you're done, man.
DR: Yeah definitely. I'm coming back stronger than I ever have so we'll see what I can do then.
LS: I talked to Stacy earlier. I understand you're in training right now.
DR: Yeah, I've been training ever since a month after my nose got fixed. The doctor said I can fight. I'm just training, man. I'm training every second I can.
LS: Tell me about the injuries you sustained.
DR: My cheekbone, like right beside my nose and underneath my eye socket, it had multiple fractures. My nose got broke. It got crushed over to the side. I know everything happens for a reason but, I mean just 30 seconds of a fight, you can't tell nobody whether you can fight or not. I'll get a rematch with Ronald and I'll show him what I'm made of. I couldn't go to the surgeon for like a week and a half to see what he wanted to do with my face and by then it was already healed up enough. So he coudn't do anything with my fracture on my face. It was already healing good to where it would be stronger than it would be if it was normal. He just went ahead and re-broke my nose, and that's all he did. He said give me about 2 months and then I could fight whoever I want, whenever I want.
Stacy Goodson (Photo courtesy of Stacy Goodson)
LS: Good. So the injuries are not going to hurt your career at all.
DR: No way. Not at all.
LS: And like you said, when a bone is broken it heals back stronger than it was before.
DR: Yeah, let's see if Ronald can touch me next time.
LS: I know that it must have been embarrassing for you.
DR: Yeah, I talked so much crap, you know? And then (whistles). That's the biggest let-down you can have when you're really going in confident. It sucked. I wouldn't wish that upon anybody.
LS: Well, I'll tell you what, you're proving that you have heart because you aren't hanging up the gloves. You're lacing them back up and getting ready to move ahead.
DR: It's a bumpy road, man. It's my job to make it smoother. If I work hard, it makes it smooth. If I don't work hard, it's a bumpy ride.
LS: You've fought some tough guys. It's not like you've just fought a bunch of push-overs.
DR: Yeah and the thing is, nobody knows I could have beat those guys. Let me have the opportunities they have - the trainers they have. I got my trainer. I'll never have another trainer in my whole career. I know where I came from. [Stacy Goodson] started me and I'm going to let him finish me. But we don't have all the money like all these guys I fought. They have promoters, they have money-men, they have people to buy them opponents, you know? They get opponents for easy wins on their way up that makes them 19-0 or 24-0. We don't have the money to do that so I have to fight these guys. These guys are my amateur fights. (Raines started boxing as a pro without a single amateur fight.) It sucks losing, but I consider this as my learning experience and I'm going to come back stronger than ever.
LS: And every amateur loses some fights. Even Floyd Mayweather Jr. lost some of his amateur fights.
DR: Yeah. It's what you take from it and what you learn from it. I'm going to take everything I got from every loss and I'm going to use it to my advantage.
LS: Has your loss to Hearns fired you up and made you even more determined?
DR: Oh, it fires me up more than I've ever been fired-up to train.
Delray Raines (left) vs. Carson Jones (Photo courtesy Delray Raines}
LS: Stacy told me earlier how a lot of times they've called you on short notice and not giving you enough time to get ready for who you're facing.
DR: Yeah, but at the same time, it's my fault to as the opponent that they're calling. I should be training already. I'm not going lie. It is hard to train - to have something to motivate you if you don't have a fight scheduled. It's hard to stay in hard training because you got nothing to train for. You're not studying nobody. You don't know the style that you need to study for. When they call me and only give me 2 weeks to train, it's not enough.
LS: I imagine it is hard to be inspired when you don't have a fight coming up.
DR: Yeah. You just got to have your heart set to where you're motivated all the time, and my face getting broke in 30 seconds is plenty enough for me.
LS: When will your next fight be?
DR: I believe it might be July 8th. I might be able to get on a card in Oklahoma City. Then after that, August 28th is the next date - right here in my hometown of Paris.
LS: That's the card that will be featuring George "Comanche Boy" Tahdooahnippah (23-0-1, 18 KOs). I'll be at that event. I hope you can get on that card.
DR:: Yeah, definitely. Hopefully I'll see you there, Lorne.
LS: Ok, Delray. Have a good night and God bless you.
DR: Alright, man. Thank you buddy.
LS: Thank you.
Send questions and comments to lscoggins@8countnews.com
Delray "Rainmaker" Raines scores a 5th round TKO over "DynoMike" Terry
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