Ray Austin (boxer)

Ray Austin
Data
Birth Name	Raymond Austin
Fight name	The Rainman
Weight class	Heavyweight
nationality	US-american
birthday	October 31, 1970
place of birth	Cleveland
style	Left delivery
size	1.98 m
Combat Statistics
Struggles	43
Victories	29
Knockout victories	18th
Defeats	10
draw	4th

Ray Austin (born October 31, 1970 in Cleveland , United States ) is an American heavyweight boxer .

Life

Ray Austin's father was an amateur boxer, but as a teenager he was often involved in street fights, was never an amateur and came into boxing by chance. At the age of sixteen he was expelled from school in Detroit , where he lived with his mother. He became a father for the first time when he was seventeen and traded drugs. At the age of eighteen, Austin was convicted of car theft. In 1992, the now twenty-one year old went to his probation officer with cocaine he had left in his coat pocket, was caught and was sentenced to another four years in prison. The envisaged boxing career was initially put on hold. It was not until a long time later, after his stay in prison, that he worked, among other things, for a fast-food chain, did he start professional boxing due to financial difficulties. Austin has five children from three women and has since been divorced twice.

Professional career

Austin started his career in 1998 at the age of almost 28 and has already lost his professional debut on points. In the following year he was able to defeat two opponents, Ron Guerrero and Cisse Salif, who often acted as sparring partners for well-known boxers and thus gained a certain reputation.

In 2000 he lost to Harold Sconiers (only 13 wins in 20 fights) and was knocked out against the Swedish Olympian Attila Levin . Although he had Levin on the ground in the first round, he had no chance in the further course of the fight. According to his own statements, he broke his hand in the first round.

Because of his age, he didn't seem to have a great future in professional boxing. When he boxed a draw with an indisposed Lance Whitaker in 2002 , Don King noticed him and signed him. Austin had served Jameel McCline as a sparring partner before his win against Whitaker and therefore studied his style. Austin then defeated a number of mainly carefully selected, less well-known opponents in the following period. In 2005 he won another draw against Larry Donald .

He was then selected by the IBF for an elimination match for a high ranking position against Owen Beck , who was also under contract with King . Beck had lost a WBC World Championship elimination by knockout against King Boxer Monte Barrett in his previous fight . Austin won the fight on points and moved up to second position in the IBF rankings behind Wladimir Klitschko .

By Klitschko's rise to IBF world champion in April 2006, the first place in the ranking was free, so that a fight between Austin and the Russian Sultan Ibragimow was ordered by the IBF . The winner should be Klitschko's mandatory challenger. The fight ended in a draw on July 28, 2006; both boxers had to go to the ground during the fight. At the green table, the IBF President named Austin a mandatory challenger because the referee is said to have overlooked a rainfall. Austin lost the fight for the IBF World Championship on March 10, 2007 in the SAP Arena in Mannheim against Wladimir Klitschko in the second round by a technical knockout. The fight lasted only 4:25 minutes.

In November 2008 he defeated the 40-year-old Pole Andrzej Gołota in the Chinese city of Chengdu . Gołota fell to the ground in the first few seconds of the fight and also suffered an injury to his left arm in the course of the round, so that he gave up the fight after the first round. In October 2009, Austin managed another early win against 41-year-old DaVarryl Williamson . In the fourth round he knocked Williamson to the ground with an uppercut, which led to the referee breaking off the fight.

Web links

• Ray Austin in the BoxRec database