Former 140-pound World Champ Johnny Bumphus Dead at age 59

Word has arrived that former WBA junior welterweight champion Johnny “Bump City” Bumphus died yesterday, Feb. 3, at a hospital in his hometown of Tacoma, Washington where he was being treated for a heart ailment. He was 59.

Before embarking on a pro career that produced a 29-2 record and a world title, Bumphus, who started boxing at the age of eight, was one of America’s most decorated amateurs. Reportedly 341-16, he won a national Golden Gloves title and two national AAU titles and earned a berth on the 1980 U.S. Olympic Team.

Amateur boxing was hot back in those days, a residue of the great performance turned in by the 1976 team in Montreal. As an amateur, Bumphus reportedly appeared on national TV 15 times including his match with Randy Shields that won him a ticket to Moscow, the site of the 1980 Games.

As we all know, Bumphus and his Olympic teammates never got to Moscow. By order of President Jimmy Carter, the U.S. boycotted the games as a protest against Russia’s invasion of Afghanistan.

That likely hurt Bumphus in the pocketbook in terms of the signing bonus he commanded when he turned pro. Of all the boxers on the U.S. team, he was accorded the best chance of winning a gold medal. Had he done so, that would have meant back-to-back golds for the U.S. team in the 139-pound weight class. This was Sugar Ray Leonard’s division at Montreal. And although Bumphus had a different body type than Leonard – he was tall and lanky – and he was a southpaw, the smooth way in which he moved around the ring drew comparisons to Sugar Ray as he was climbing the amateur ladder.

Bumphus came from a dysfunctional family. To escape his surroundings, he followed his amateur teammate Bernard Taylor to Nashville where he finished his senior year of high school at historic Pearl High. A Nashville man named Ace Miller was a big wheel on the national amateur boxing scene and he found Bumphus a place to live, a room above a police station.

At Pearl High, Bumphus was voted the “most sophisticated person” in the senior class. A classmate, Debbie Boyd, was voted “most popular.” They got married as she was finishing her studies at Tennessee State University.

Johnny and Debbie moved to the Philadelphia area after Bumphus joined the Duva stable. At Joe Frazier’s gym, where Bumphus trained under George Benton, he was reunited with his old Tacoma homey Rocky Lockridge.

Bumphus won the vacant WBA junior welterweight title on Jan. 22, 1984 at the Sands Casino Hotel in Atlantic city with a 15-round unanimous decision over Argentina’s Lorenzo Garcia. In his first defense, he lost the title – and his undefeated record — when he was stopped in the 11^th round by Gene Hatcher in Buffalo. Bumphus was comfortably ahead on the scorecards through the 10 completed rounds, but got careless. The stoppage was controversial and led to an extra-curricular fight between Bumphus’s volatile cornerman Lou Duva and referee Johnny LoBianco. Bumphus vs. Hatcher was named the 1984 The Ring magazine Upset of the Year.

Bumphus was having trouble making the 140-pound limit. This was his last bout at 140. His next important match was a contest with Marlon Starling that was framed as a title eliminator. The prize for the winner was a match with WBC/IBF welterweight champion Lloyd Honeyghan.

Bumphus and Starling fought on May 18, 1986, at Providence, Rhode Island. The fight ended late in the sixth round when Bumphus suffered a bad cut as a result of an accidental head butt. The bout went to the scorecards and Bumphus prevailed via a unanimous decision.

Bumphus and Lloyd Honeyghan fought before a packed house at London’s Wembley Arena. Honeyghan won in a flash. Bumphus was down twice before the match was stopped at the 55 second mark of round two.

Bumphus wasn’t right going into that fight. He was having trouble with his equilibrium. Although he was only 26 years old, he would never fight again.

In retirement, Bumphus, like his old friend Rocky Lockridge, fell victim to the cocaine epidemic. He and his wife Debbie, who had been living in a fine home in the upscale Phildelphia suburb of Mount Laurel, New Jersey, returned to Nashville to be closer to her parents. Reporters found him there in March of 1988 in the rehab unit of Nashville’s Baptist Hospital. His weight had ballooned to 180 pounds and he was described as a physical and emotional wreck.

Trouble followed Bumphus when he returned to Tacoma. A drug deal in September of 1991 turned bad when a man pulled a knife and wounded him, whereupon Bumphus turned the knife on his attacker and stabbed him to death. It was self-defense, said the authorities, and no charges were filed.

In 2001, Bumphus was elected to the New Jersey Boxing Hall of Fame. At the time, he was living sober in Palm Beach, Florida, and training several Duva-promoted boxers, notably future 154-pound world title-holder Kassim Ouma. In the ensuing years, there’s been no mention of him in the daily papers, likely a good thing.

Those that knew Johnny Bumphus as a young man will tell you that his travails were out of character. “The Johnny Bumphus I knew,” said Richie Sandoval, the former bantamweight champion who was part of the Olympic team that never got to Moscow, “was very structured. There was something about those Tacoma guys, Johnny and Leo Randolph and Davey Armstrong. They all seemed more mature than the rest of us.”

We here at The Sweet Science send condolences to Johnny’s loved ones. May he rest in peace.

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