"Everywhere I go people say, 'You're the 7UP kid!' " says Ray Jr. "They remember it like it was yesterday."

But that magic-in-a-bottle moment - which a few years ago was cited by ESPN as the 24th best sports commercial of the last 25 years - happened in 1980, the year Ronald Reagan was elected president. Ray Leonard Jr. is now 35 and the father of four.

Is the "7UP kid" still cute as a button? More important, did his Hall of Fame father pass along some of his scrappier genes? The curious can find out for themselves when Ray Jr. squares off against Delaware County's Derek Macintosh on July 24 in promoter Damon Feldman's 10th installment of Celebrity Boxing.

Leonard-Macintosh will be the co-featured event at the Ice Works Skating Complex in Aston, along with the pairing of baseball slugger/whistle-blower Jose Canseco and five-time Wing Bowl eating champion Bill "El Wingador" Simmons.

You'd think the son of Sugar Ray Leonard would have certain advantages in this sort of affair, but then Ray Jr. will be participating in his first boxing match since he was 6, the same age he was when that 7UP commercial was filmed.

"I had one amateur fight. They put me in with a guy who was, like, 8 or 9. I really didn't know what I was doing; I just ran at him. As I recall, it ended in a draw," said the 5-10, 195-pound Leonard, a former running back at Ohio University who fills his time these days with "acting, broadcasting, sports-management and promotional stuff."

So why didn't he follow in his famous father's footsteps and try his hand at boxing more extensively?

"I wanted to establish my own identity," he said. "If I had gone into boxing, it would have been almost impossible for me to make my own mark. I would always have been compared unfavorably with my father.

"But I always wondered what I could have done if I had given it a try. When this celebrity boxing thing presented itself, which also meant a chance for me to benefit some good charities, I thought, 'Why not?' I think it could be fun and interesting."

Feldman said that landing the son of Sugar Ray Leonard is a major coup, certainly more so than the night in 2003 when one of the featured bouts had a certain ill-conditioned boxing writer throwing down with Center City attorney George Bochetto. But, hey, at least I had Bernard Hopkins working my corner.

"I got in touch with Ray through a guy in New England who's a good friend of [former lightweight and middleweight titlist] Vinny Pazienza," Feldman said. "He thought Ray might be interested. I contacted him and we got it done."

All of this came as a surprise to Sugar Ray Leonard, who admits to worrying that the father of his grandchildren might learn at this late date that boxing, even the celebrity variety, can be serious business.

"I was blown away," Sugar Ray told me. "Shocked, and a bit alarmed. Ray has had maybe 2 minutes of fisticuffs in his entire life. But you know what? It's better for him to try his hand at something like celebrity boxing than the real thing."

Both Leonards live in Southern California and it's possible they could get together to work on a few moves and to come up with a fight strategy. Who knows, maybe this improbable turn of events could even lead to a new 7UP commercial.

"I said, 'Son, I can give you a few pointers, if you want. Stop by the house and we can go over a few things,' " Sugar Ray said.

"I don't know if he'll take me up on that."

Garner plunges in

 

For his first boxing promotional venture, North Philadelphia's Blaine Garner isn't so much dipping his toe into the murky waters as cannonballing off the high board.

The former featherweight, who compiled a 1-4 record in the 1980s, snagged a lucrative ESPN2 date for Friday night's card at the Arena (formerly known as the New Alhambra) in South Philly.

"This is the opportunity of a lifetime," Garner said of his splashy debut event. "It's my dream to bring big-time boxing back to Philadelphia."

The 12-round marquee bout of the evening, which Garner's Shalyte Entertainment is staging in conjunction with Jimmy Burchfield's Classic Sports Entertainment, has NABF cruiserweight champion Matt Godfrey (18-1, 10 KOs), of Providence, R.I., defending against Shawn Hawk (18-0-1, 16 KOs), of Sioux Falls, S.D.

Light-heavyweight contender Shaun George (18-2-2, 9 KOs), of Brooklyn, N.Y., squares off against Houston's Chris Henry (23-2, 18 KOs) in the 10-round co-feature.

The top local on the card is Germantown junior middleweight Derek "Pooh" Ennis (17-2-1, 12 KOs), who takes on John Mackey (11-3-2, 5 KOs), of Montgomery, Ala., in an eight-rounder.

Punch lines

 

It's just my opinion, but I think Showtime dropped the ball in not televising the matchup of former cruiserweight champions Steve "USS" Cunningham (21-2, 11 KOs) and Wayne "Big Truck" Braithwaite (23-3, 19 KOs) Saturday night in Sunrise, Fla. Joseph Agbeko (26-1, 22 KOs) defends his IBF bantamweight title against Vic Darchinyan (32-1-1, 26 KOs) in the featured bout, but I'd rather see Cunningham-Braithwaite than the other half of the TV doubleheader, which pits lightweights Antonio DeMarco (21-1-1, 15 Kos) and Anges Adjaho (25-1, 14 KOs) . . . Talk about going the distance! Former welterweight and middleweight champion Carmen Basilio, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1990, finally picked up his diploma from Canastota (N.Y.) High on June 27 - at age 82. *

Send e-mail to fernanb@phillynews.com.