Johnny “Bump City” Bumphus: Reaching the Mountain Top & the Long Spiral Down
I used to be a correctional officer. From the mid 90’s all the way through to 2012, I walked the landings in Mountjoy Prison and Limerick Jail in Ireland. Although I’m retired just three years, I look back on those days as if they were a lifetime ago. In a sense, I suppose they were as there is a life changing effect that comes with working 12 hours a day, sometimes weeks at a time, year after year, Christmases, birthdays, holidays and anniversaries included. Over the three decades, I encountered individuals that ranged from the down and the addicted to the vile and the vicious. I knew men who would have found the end of a rope had capital punishment not been prohibited and, likewise, I met guys who I would have gladly had a beer with if circumstances were different.
With that in mind, I’ve always believed there was a paper thin line between standing on one side of a cell door and staring out from the other.. But the thought of a correctional officer doing time is unpleasant to me on many levels but such was the fate of one time Light Welterweight wizard Johnny “Bump City” Bumphus.
Johnny was born in Tacoma, Washington on August 17th 1960. Life was troubled from the start and he found boxing at the tender age of eight. He signed up at the Tacoma Boxing Club under trainer, coach and mentor Joe Clough. The club had several good fighters including Sugar Ray Seales and Rocky Lockridge and it came as no surprise when Bumphus and Sugar Ray made the US Boxing team for the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Of course politics would dictate the fate of these boxers when President Jimmy Carter decided that America would boycott the event. But the relationship between Bumphus and his trainer Joe Gough had strengthened over time and, following, several traumatic episodes in Johnny’s personal life, he was placed in the custody of his friend and father figure Gough.
They were in Texas fighting the Cubans when Johnny’s mother passed away. He had just beaten the Cuban champion when Gough brought him back to his room and broke the news. The following day they travelled back to Tacoma and Bumphus bid a last farewell to the tragic figure that gave him life.
Back at the gym and Gough was training Johnny for a series of fight nights sponsored by law enforcement agencies. He was trying to steer his young charge away from the pitfalls all about him. Johnny responded with interest and he successfully applied for a position in corrections with the Sheriffs Department in Nashville and, after a long consultation with his trainer, he turned Pro. He left the club in Tacoma and went from Joe Gough to Shelly Finkel and Lou Duva. Bumphus won his debut fight with a first round KO of Mike Michaud in Nevada on November 8th 1980.
His career in the ring became truly outstanding and by September of 1983 he has compiled a record of 21-0, 16 KO’s. He had pressed his prison uniform for the last time but he looked back to his days on the wings with a jaded cynicism. “Wasn’t a day went by when I didn’t get cussed up one side or and down the other” he’d say. Those days were gone and a world title beckoned. On January 22nd 1984, Johnny Bumphus, the kid from Tacoma, became WBA Light Welterweight champion of the world with a hard fought points decision over Lorenzo Luis Garcia in The Sands Casino Hotel, Atlantic City.
In his first defense, Bumphus was involved in an unpleasant bout with tough contender Gene Hatcher who claimed that the champ and his manager, Lou Duva, had upset him before the fight. By the time the bout had gone into the 11th round, Bumphus was ahead on the scorecards but he took a left hook from the challenger and went down. He got up and leaned on Hatcher but he slipped as the two men wrestled and the referee jumped in to stop it. “I was in good shape for the fight but making the weight really hurt me.” Johnny said in a 2010 interview “I was okay to continue and I’d won 9 of the 11 rounds. I knew it was my last bout at 140lbs”.
The move proved positive and he reeled off seven great wins at 147 with one of those coming against The Magic Man Marlon Starling. A title shot against the Don Curry conqueror Lloyd Honeyghan was scheduled for February 22nd 1987 and all seemed well in training. But the reality was that Bumphus was having problems with his legs and Lou Duva had concerns about the fact that he was stumbling occasionally and he had referred Johnny to a specialist in Los Angeles. He looked unsteady in the opening round of his bout with Honeyghan and was lucky to hear the bell. The fight was over in the first seconds of the 2nd round.
The specialist in L.A diagnosed an equilibrium issue and the prognosis wasn’t good. At the age of 26, Bumphus career in the ring was over. He was retired and went back to Nashville. Away from the lights, the gym, the team and the glory Johnny found a dark path and walked it alone.
By the time he was 27, he was addicted to crack cocaine and the life that he’d known was over. Stints in rehab had mixed results and, after falling off the wagon several times, Bumphus watched his wife take their son and leave. Arrests followed along with stints in jail. “This is the lowest I’ve ever been” Johnny lamented in 1990 “I’m a drug addict, I have no money, I’ve lost my house and my car. I had it all and I smoked it all up”.
The past would weave in and out of his life and he would have recurring nightmares that troubled him deeply. “They’re always the same” he would say “My nephew Jermaine would be there, breaking down, crying, screaming, telling me not to do it, not to keep doing that dope. He would say that I was the only one in the family that made it, that I was a champion but look at me now”.
Johnny would undergo extended spells in rehab in both Philadelphia and Nashville. He would take up a training position in Duva’s Gym but that would fall apart following numerous false promises. The men parted in anger. “Get out of my life” Duva yelled “If you want to kill yourself, be my guest, go kill yourself”. Bumphus would finally go back to Tacoma to live in the house his parents left him. The old crew were gone. Gough was in the Philippines having lived in Thailand for 5yrs. Seales was in Indianapolis, Lockridge had moved to Louisiana and Johnny was left to fight on alone. In 2010, Bumphus was clean and trying to stay that way. In an interview from his house, he took the opportunity to thank those who had supported him along the way. “I just want to thank all the fans out there that watched my career” he said “To all the boxing fans throughout the world, thank not only for supporting me but all the fighters out there”.
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