To say it started innocently is an understatement.

Young boxer Vinny Pazienza's cute young girlfriend, maybe 22, dropped by the office at my regular job with a hand-typed press release and a picture of her beau. This was around 1984. Pazienza was fighting on the undercard of some local boxing night. It was about one leap higher than banging down drinks and watching the Sweet Science on the TV set at Manny Almeida's Ringside Café, at the corner of Wickenden and Brook streets -- "Where the Sports Figures of the World Unite." Well, certainly it was the only sports bar in Providence where the bartender was a screaming queen who the regulars called "Joy Boy." Trust those boxing fans for their subtle wit.

I had no idea who Vinny Pazienza was, but the sincerity of his young friend won me over. Any guy -- and a boxer no less -- who could have his honey out thumping the tub for him had to have something on the plus side.

This was in the days when the Providence Journal didn't even cover local boxing. The ProJo deemed it a low-class affair, not worthy of their highbrow readership in Oakland Beach, North Providence, and downtown Woonsocket. Vinny was a young Turk -- excuse me, goombah -- who had made his mark nationally in the amateur ranks despite the lack of attention paid to his success in his own backyard. This was light years before he evolved into our own Rocky Balboa, with even more piss and vinegar, a flashy slugger and showman who drew literal inspiration from watching Sylvester Stallone battle Apollo Creed on the silver screen at the Park Cinema in Cranston. As they say in Cranston, "You couldana make this shit up." Vinny did.

That Paz picture handed to me by the unassuming but devoted young woman is now a reverse Dorian Gray. His nose is straight, his brow unscarred, and he's lithe and sculpted. A far cry from the current picture of a man who led with his head throughout much of his career, whose scarred and creased eyebrows are a surer source of blood than the Red Cross, and whose nose has been broken so many times he might as well try to breathe through his ears. Oh, and did we mention a broken neck acquired in a car crash, just by way of showing an otherworldly tolerance of pain?

Gone, too, is the vestal virgin, replaced over time by a parade of babes, including "exotic dancers" (to be kind) who posed with the pride of Cranston in Penthouse. Bet they missed confession a few times.

But this story isn't about Vinny Paz -- now his legal name, ostensibly because they wouldn't allow "The Pazmanian Devil" on an American Express card or a driver's license -- but rather his parents, Angelo and Louise. Angelo passed away at the end of January, after a horrible battle with Alzheimer's. Horrible in that he was a man who ran at about 1500 rpm and could light up a room like his son, and losing that charisma was more of loss for his buddies than himself. Louise was the flip side of the coin. She refused to watch -- much less attend -- her son's fights. Knowing she would be wearing out the rosaries in the kitchen, I called her during a fight just to chit-chat and take her mind off the bout, and ended up with a recipe for stromboli that my friends still chirp about.

Angelo, meanwhile, was a monster raving loony, in all the best sense. He is credited with selling every other ticket to Vinny's fight with Joe Frazier Jr. that sold out the Civic Center in February 1986. He proudly showed me the video of that fight, which I had attended, and it was surreal. The lighting made the ring look like an Edward Hopper painting, and it was chilling to hear the visceral roar issued by the 99 percent-plus male crowd whenever Vinny waded in on Joe. Braveheart's troops held nothing on the fans from Little Rhody, who smelled blood and wanted their champion to parade around the ring with Frazier's head on a pike after the duel.

Years later, I stopped by the Father and Son gym in Olneyville to chat with Angelo on the day of Vinny's fight against Greg Haugen -- one of two immortal wars with an amazing hard-ass, who matched Vinny's refusal to ever quit until they tore out his heart. Angelo raced in to wake up the Pazman so he could greet me. The son was embarrassed beyond belief, to say the least, as his nap was interrupted by his Dad's enthusiasm. But all of the glad-handing and backslapping that became Vinny's stock in trade over the years came straight from Angelo, who always poured out his heart for anyone who liked his son. His presence in Vinny's corner during fights had to be as distracting as having someone setting off a foghorn in your ear every five seconds, but one had the feeling that whatever burned inside Angelo was being transmitted directly to Vinny's heart.

One of the most amazing things I ever experienced in my sportswriting career came when Vinny left on a tour of Italy early in his professional career, having made the big jump from the amateurs. Knowing he was an intelligent kid -- a virtual Stephen Hawking among boxing circles, if you'll recall the Mensa traits of Sonny Liston or Mike Tyson -- I asked if he would write back to me, describing how his boxing tour was going in his father's homeland. I had wanted to recount it in the paper, since the ProJo continued to ignore his ascendancy, despite the hometown roots.

When the first letter arrived, it was so clearly written and grammatically correct that it almost didn't need editing. But the killer was, that while the language was fairly straightforward (to be kind) -- "The asshole didn't hurt me a bit" -- it was written in beautiful script on what had to be his grandmother's stationery, replete with scalloped edges and a little picture of flowers in the upper right corner.

This is the image of Vinny Paz that I've always kept in my head. Flowered stationery, not the ridiculous leopard-skin loincloths that marked the latter stages of his career. And every time I see the Pazman's name in print, I conjure up the images of a mother worrying her beads at the kitchen table while her son is slugging it our somewhere in a crowded arena, and a man named Angelo is screaming his paternal support from ringside, forever ranting, forever raving, forever caring.

I miss guys like that. I miss Angelo.

Issue Date: February 21 - 27, 2003