Jeff “The Nightmare” Camp — the promising Dayton boxer whose fistic nickname had turned into a near deadly self-prophecy — was making his return to the ring after being shot five times and left for dead in a pool of blood outside the Dollar General store on Salem Avenue in Trotwood 17 months ago.
Many people thought he would not survive — he’d been shot in the forehead, neck, twice in the back and once in the left forearm by a .45 caliber pistol — and, if he did, almost no one imagined he’d ever return to the fight game.
How could he?
The first bullet, which entered his left temple, had travelled downward in his head and lodged near his brain stem, too close, he said, for doctors to surgically remove. Another bullet remained in his back.
While he amazed doctors with his recovery, the months following the shooting often were a real struggle. Headaches were so severe that he could barely move. There was some early memory loss and some balance issues.
“He had to fight through depression and anxiety and pain, all that,” said Tempestt, who is a nurse. “But he showed real perseverance.”
Camp said right after the shooting he wasn’t sure if he’d be physically able to box again or even if he wanted to. But one thing didn’t change:
“Boxing has always been my first true love. It was my escape route for everything I had to deal with – my grandmother passing, stuff I went through with my mom – while I was growing up.
“And after the shooting I didn’t have a lot of people to talk with, so I began to think about boxing.”
Late in the spring of last year, he said he ventured into a gym in Dayton, just to hit the heavy bag and “see if my eyes and my brain would be on the same level and I could move the same.
“And it was weird. It was like I hadn’t taken a break.”
This past December — with a doctor’s release in hand, he said — he returned to Las Vegas where he had previously trained at the well-known Mayweather’s Gym, home of the championship Mayweather clan, including Floyd Jr., who retired with a 50-0 record after winning world titles at five weight classes.
After three months there under the guidance of trainer Otis Pimpleton Jr., Camp — who had had an impressive amateur record and was 5-2-1 as a pro — was signed to fight the six-round main event on the “Back to Business” show put on by West Virginia promoter, B. Lee Management.
He was matched with Kelvin Smith, a Pittsburgh welterweight who was a year younger at 31 and had a 2-2 record.
For the fight, Camp wore the new uniform he had planned to unveil at a December 2020 title fight that was derailed by his shooting two months earlier.
Made by Dayton fashion designer Aaron Harrison, the baby blue, silver and white ring attire includes a hooded top that proclaims in big letters across the chest: “Living Proof.”
Proclamations aside, his young daughter needed some assurance.
She approached her dad as he was getting ready to walk to the ring and soon he bent down so she could whisper her concerns.
“We had a small conversation about how nervous she was,” Camp said. “It was her first fight and I told her it was going to be OK. I told her all she had to do was yell as hard as her mom was yelling.
“She gave me a little kiss on the cheek and then she ran off and I headed to the ring.”
‘There still was some fight in me’
Camp — who initially played football at Dunbar High School and then went to Isus Trade & Technology Prep on Keowee Street — didn’t start boxing until he walked into Kenny Miliner’s gym at age 18.
Within three years he was making a name for himself in the amateur ranks, winning middleweight titles at the Missouri Black Expo in St. Louis (2011), the Ohio State Fair (2012) and surprising everyone by winning three bouts at the USA Boxing “Last Chance” Olympic Trials qualifier in Cincinnati in 2012.
The day after he lost a quarterfinal match there, he was flown to Los Angeles to fill in on a televised bout with highly acclaimed (and later IBO world middleweight champ) Kanat Islam at the World Series of Boxing.
Islam, a Chinese-born Kazakhstani, already had fought in two Olympics and won bronze at the Beijing Games in 2008.
On short notice and after a three time zone flight, Camp went toe to toe with him for four rounds.
Although he began his pro career with a gut punch — two losses and a draw — Camp soon changed his trainer, gym and results.
He won five straight matches, embraced his new nickname — “The Nightmare” — and became known for the Harrison-styled gold robe, trunks and mask he wore into the ring.
Life was even more resplendent away from the ring.
He met Tempestt Melvin, a former Trotwood Madison cheerleader and athlete who was studying to be a nurse. She had three children, as did he, and they then had Ja’Bre together.
The married in 2018 and now live in Clayton with four of their young children.
To help support the family, Camp was working as the assistant general manager at the Dollar General on Salem.
Just after noon on Oct. 15, 2020, as he was taking some boxes to the trash bin outside, he noticed a Chevrolet Equinox parked on the side of the store, away from the other vehicles. As he passed the car he saw a man sitting behind the wheel staring straight ahead.
As he was about to walk back in the store, he heard the car door open, turned and was immediately shot in the head. An onlooker said the unknown assailant, dressed all in black, then stood over the fallen Camp and shot him four more times at point blank range.
The shooter then returned to the car and sped off. The stolen vehicle was later found in flames on Shakespeare Avenue.
The gunman has never been identified or arrested.
As he lay on the asphalt, Camp’s eyes were open, but he said he could only see a whiteness:
“I’d just gotten shot in the head and I knew you usually don’t beat that,” he told me last year. “Laying there, I thought, ‘You’re about to go see Mommy.’
“That’s what we called my grandma when she was alive.”
Mary Ann Camp Louis, who died in 2006, had played a big part in raising her grandson.
His misty drift to the other side was interrupted, he said, by the voice of a paramedic at his side:
“He said, ‘Jeff The Nightmare Camp, I’m sorry this is your first championship fight, but Man, you gotta win this one.’
“They put me on a stretcher and I remember him saying, ‘We’ve got five minutes ‘til we get Miami Valley Hospital. That’s a five-minute round you have to fight through.’”
At the hospital, he was told doctors couldn’t get him to respond until Tempestt, who arrived in a police car, told him: “Baby, you hear what they’re saying? Raise your arm.’
“And they say I smacked my lips and threw my arm up. Wifey had gotten me to respond. And that let them know there still was some fight in me.”
‘Wlecome back to boxing’
Early in the West Virginia bout, one thing about his opponent — who wore green trunks emblazoned with “Steel City” — became clear to Camp:
“This dude came to fight!”
In the first round, Kelvin Smith trapped Camp on the ropes and caught him with five or six unanswered shots, some to the head.
“He was basically a head hunter,” Camp said. “And I was thinking, ‘Welcome back to boxing!’”
A few months earlier that might have panicked him.
“When I first started to spar at Floyd’s place, there were times the sessions weren’t in my favor because I was too nervous,” he said. “I’d be thinking, ‘Man, if he hits me in the head with a clean shot, how’s my body gonna react?’
“But then I did get caught a few times and nothing happened. I didn’t get dizzy or weak and I began to think, ‘OK! You took that pretty good. You’re good to go.’”
Against Smith, he finally slipped some punches, countered and got off the ropes.
His daughter though was in tears as she watched him get hit. Her mom tried to comfort her and finally, for a short while, Ja’Bre buried her face in Tempestt’s lap.
In the second round a Smith punch sent the off-balance Camp to the canvas. He popped back up, but took an eight count. Tempestt said she waited until the fifth round to really urge her husband on: “I started yelling for him to pick it up. I said, ‘We didn’t come all this way for you to be down!’
“And at the start of the last round he got up off his stool, turned his head to me and winked.
“Right then I knew he was listening. He was ready and within a minute or so the fight was over.”
Camp said he had seen a flaw in Smith’s attack and that allowed him to land a right hook “that pretty much knocked him out right there. And as he was about to fall, I threw another one and that was it.”
With Ja’Bre and Tempestt cheering loudly, Camp got the TKO victory at 1:19 of the sixth round.
“This was the most important fight I ever had,” he said. “After the shooting situation, it could have gone another way. I easily could not have made it or been paralyzed. Instead I was able to fight again.”
Tempestt agreed about the importance of the fight:
“This was a real victory for him. He could have died. And after fighting for his life, after all the physical and mental and emotional battles, he came through it. He showed just what he was made of.”
“I am living proof,” Camp said. “I proved a lot to myself and everybody else.”
And that includes his daughter.
After the fight, the now beaming Ja’Bre crawled up in her dad’s arms,
Her eyes were dry, but many of those watching were shedding some tears.
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