Tony Ayala Jr – Untameable Rage

By Craig Joseph Daly: Exploding on to the scene in the early 1980’s at a time when the welterweight and middleweight divisions were stacked with marquee names, perhaps no one fighter in the entire sport operated with the same intensity as the young man from San Antonio. He displayed a rage within the ring still unmatched to this day. The problem was upon leaving the ring Ayala Jr would fail to leave that of which made him such an intimidating force inside the ropes.

In his personal life Tony Ayala was prone to alarmingly erratic behaviour and his wrap sheet was as daunting as his ring record. On January 1, 1983 with an undefeated record of 22 wins, 19 by way of knockout, with a shot at then champion Davey Moore looming and his career ready to launch into the stratosphere of superstardom, Ayala Jr would break into the a female neighbors home and brutally rape the young schoolteacher. Ayala carried two previous offences resulting from his despicable actions towards women and this time under the repeat offenders act the judge decreed he be sentenced to 35 years in prison.

While incarcerated several networks would air documentaries on Ayala Jr, some of which would include interviews with his state mental health professionals testifying how hard Ayala Jr was working to rehabilitate himself. Hindsight however, demonstrates just how hasty this assessment was as upon his release in 1999, Ayala Jr resumed both his boxing career and his troublesome lifestyle. He was wounded while breaking and entering the home of another female, was then accused of having sexual relations with a minor and finally was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being caught speeding without a licence and under the influence of heroin.

Had this raw talent mastered a way of channeling his rage to specifically immerse itself within his craft, then perhaps when we now look back at boxing’s great foursome of the 1980’s Hagler, Hearns, Leonard and Duran we would include another name. It should be mentioned that Tony Ayala Jr experienced a perilous childhood which he was the victim of both physical and sexual abuse and although this in no way excuses his horrible criminal activity, it does go a significant way to explaining just why he failed to possess the core set of values that might have assisted him in maintaining the necessary discipline one needs to cope with life at the pinnacle of one’s profession.

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