John Bray's Story

The name John Bray may bring up a buzz in the boxing community with stories that date back to the early 90's. At the young age of 9, John had his first amateur bout and eventually would win seven national titles, with an outstanding record of 124-12. He would have his most notable win as an amateur winning the gold medal in 1991 against Melvin Foster at the US Olympic Festival in Los Angeles. John would win the gold medal alongside future world Champions Oscar De La Hoya and Raul Marquez.

Bray turned professional in 1992 and won his first couple bouts of his professional career, but his career never got on track and his record ended up 15-3-2. John had the opportunity to be mentored by historic trainers such as Angelo Dundee, Richie Giachetti, George Benton and Lou Duva. After being knocked out in the first round of a bout in 1998, he would eventually retire. He did however serve as sparring partners for Evander Holyfield, Lennox Lewis, Mike Tyson, and Mike McCallum. Bray then suffered a near fatal stroke and he walked away from boxing with the notion that he would never return.

John did return to boxing and definitely learned his lesson from his misguided days of partying and taking life for granted. He vowed to keep kids off the streets, assist young boxers with their careers and hopefully one-day establish his own gym. John was invited to Joe Goosen's Gym to help out and little by little got back on his feet. At Goosen's is where he would meet one his longtime pupils and former Contender participant of Season One, Miguel Espino.

John went on to train other notable fighters such as Tommy Morrison, Jose Celaya, Lance Whittaker, Jeremy Williams and was asked to train Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero who was an up and coming boxing prospect. John would eventually lead "The Ghost" to the IBF Featherweight Championship, an accomplishment he had dreamed of for years both as a professional and trainer.

Bray would eventually see another dream come true; he opened up his own gym in San Fernando, California called the John Bray Boxing Club. John trained several of his prospects at the gym as well as mentoring at-risk youth in the neighborhood. John takes more pride in turning kids around rather than his accolades in his boxing career.

In September of 2008 John had the honor of being chosen to be a trainer on the Contender TV Series, Season 4 alongside TV icon Tony Danza. When he returned from the filming of the show, John went back to work as a trainer hitting the gym and teaching boxers the Sweet Science.

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