Domestic violence and child abuse are mental scars that are left long after the physical impact of the crime.
This was very much true with one of the brightest amateur boxing champions ever to grace the sport during the 1980s. His name was Ricky ‘Wonderful’ Womack. The facts are not pretty as Mrs Womack described.
There were nine children in the household and all were subjected to child abuse and domestic violence, but it was Ricky and his twin brother Mickey who were singled out for the majority of the abuse.
Court documents show that when the twins were just 7 years old, their mother was shot by her husband Alfred Womack and survived while defending the children from him in Jackson, Tennessee, USA.
Having survived the shooting, Mrs Womack decided she needed to relocate urgently with the children to Detroit.
Unfortunately, Alfred Womack followed her bringing with him more violence and child abuse.
He was also accused of physically abusing and murdering his two-year-old son, but charges were never bought forward.
This ultimately led to the state taking all nine of the children and putting them into foster care, resulting in the Womack children being declared wards of the court.
From age 7 to 14, the twins Ricky and Mickey were in and out of boys’ homes.
They had to switch them around in various homes and transiting them back and forth between foster care.
The volatile situation led to Ricky Womack becoming homeless and having to steal money and food to survive. He also had to find refuge on the streets sleeping in empty cars and abandoned buildings.
This was certainly not the type of environment a young boy should be raised in, but it was all he could do to survive.
Ricky’s father Alfred Womack, who was an abuser and was forever on the wrong side of the law, was finally gunned down and shot dead in a robbery he was taking part in when Ricky was a just a young and struggling teenager.
The news didn’t faze young Womack as he had been a victim of his father’s crimes for far too long.
There was light at the end of the tunnel for Ricky as he decided to take up boxing as a discipline and his energy and aggression were now spent in the gym as opposed to the street. His talent was recognised by a few boxing trainers and they took Womack under their wing.
In the 1980s there were three stand out amateur boxers in the heavier divisions being Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson and the best amateur of them all being Ricky Womack.
He was a two-time US national champion, at light-heavyweight and also heavyweight in 1982 and 1983 and came very close to making the 1984 Olympic team.
Womack split eight fights with Evander Holyfield, both winning four each.
Womack was rated the world’s number-one lightheavyweight and with previous wins over Holyfield, one more victory would have secured his place for the Los Angeles games in his native country, but Holyfield beat Womack in a very close contest.
There were comparisons to Mike Tyson in his amateur days, with his fighting style and his powerful physique and before Holyfield upset the narrative Womack looked a dead cert to be on the American team for the 1984 Olympics and bring back gold for his country.
Despite the Olympic setback, Womack turned professional with a guaranteed $300,000 over two years.
The road ahead was still seemingly paved with riches for Womack. Living in a rent-free apartment and with a future appearing to be laced with world titles and the millions of dollars that would follow.
This deal was too good to be true and it turned out it ultimately was as Womack threw it all away for a few hundred dollars when he held up and robbed a shop with a 9-millimetre pistol defies any reasonable belief.
He certainly didn’t need the money, but the early years of having to hustle and the neglect, plus the child abuse almost certainly formed some of the reasons why it all went so wrong for Womack.
Womack went to jail for 15 years, while Holyfield and Tyson went on to receive adulation and riches beyond their wildest dreams.
In the end Womack, who on paper was the superior boxer to both of them and who people were tipping as the next great thing, had ruined his life.
I am convinced his abusive childhood and neglect were key components to his poor choices.
Ricky Womack was released from jail in November 2000 and tried to renew his boxing career, but it was too little too late. On a bleak and cold morning of January 19, 2002, Ricky Womack sat down on his couch in his sparse apartment.
He then proceeded to take out a gun and placed it on his temple and pulled the trigger, he was pronounced dead on arrival to the hospital. That year people who died by suicide in the US was at an all-time high, Ricky “Wonderful” Womack was one of those statistics.
• AJAY BHAI AMRIT is a founding member of The People’s Alliance party and is also a freelance writer. The views expressed in this article are his and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.
