Ricky Ray Taylor:  

ABOUT MY PROFILE PIC: So I'm asked to do a sparring scene w/an Amateur fighter from Jersey-"BODY SHOTS ONLY!"-for the short-film "The Fight Within". Since I'm old enough to be this kids DAD AND it's common knowledge that anymore shots to the head could make me speak perpetual "Mandarin" - I thought it a good idea. ...evidently, this kid didn't. ============================= LIFE -- First and foremost, my walk with the LORD was REBORN soon after witnessing hundreds of people commit suicide on 9/11. Only a few blocks away from the carnage, I was granted the realization that as FAST-PACED as my life is each day - everything can STOP in a second. Nobody who walked IN the World Trade Center that Tuesday morning knew - or would have ever imagined - that they'd be diving OUT of the window to their death a half an hour later. They were FORCED into killing themselves. Arm & arm they stepped out, some already on fire, some with their shoes & shirts off but most looked as if they'd just gotten to work. It's said that there were even some SLEEPING by their desks while co-workers, friends & relatives leapt from the window. All of them knew or were almost certain that they were going to die that day. In the days that followed I put myself in their position >>"What were they wishing for that LAST second before jumping"? "What were they regretting"? "What were they PLEADING" .... or better yet .... to WHOM were they pleading? << =========================== SCHOOL School still sucked. =================== COLLEGE It seemed like I competed in TOE to TOE COMBAT ~EVERY~ weekend since 7th grade *(137 fights in 11 years). I MISSED our HCHS graduation ceremonies in order to fight in an Olympic prelim Boxing tourney. 2 years later however (in 1989), all of my hard work paid off. I'd earned a Boxing Scholarship funded by the U.S. Olympic Training Center to LIVE there and train for the '92 Olym...Expand for more