Sugar Ray Robinson, byname of Walker Smith, Jr. (born May 3, 1921, Detroit, Mich., U.S.—died April 12, 1989, Culver City,
Calif.), American professional boxer, six times a world champion: once
as a welterweight (147 pounds), from 1946 to 1951, and five times as a
middleweight (160 pounds), between 1951 and 1960. He is considered by
many authorities to have been the best fighter in history.
He won
89 amateur fights without defeat, fighting first under his own name and
then as Ray Robinson, using the amateur certificate of another boxer of
that name in order to qualify for a bout. He won Golden Gloves titles as a featherweight in 1939 and as a lightweight in 1940.
Robinson won 40 consecutive professional fights before losing to Jake LaMotta
in one of their six battles. On Dec. 20, 1946, he won the welterweight
championship by defeating Tommy Bell on a 15-round decision. Robinson
resigned this title on winning the middleweight championship by a
13-round knockout of LaMotta on Feb. 14, 1951. He lost the 160-pound
title to Randy Turpin of England in 1951 and regained it from Turpin later that year. In 1952 he narrowly missed defeating Joey Maxim for the light-heavyweight (175-pound) crown and a few months later retired.
Robinson
returned to the ring in 1954, recaptured the middleweight title from
Carl (Bobo) Olson in 1955, lost it to and regained it from Gene Fullmer in 1957, yielded it to Carmen Basilio later that year, and for the last time won the 160-pound championship by defeating Basilio in a savage fight in 1958. Paul Pender defeated Robinson to win the title on Jan. 22, 1960, and also won their return fight.
Robinson
continued to fight until late 1965, when he was 45 years old. In 201
professional bouts, he had 109 knockouts. He suffered only 19 defeats,
most of them when he was past 40. His outstanding ability and flamboyant
personality made him a hero of boxing
fans throughout the world. In retirement he appeared on television and
in motion pictures and formed a youth foundation in 1969.
On this day in 1777, the Continental Congress receives a letter
from Continental Army General George Washington informing them of the
Patriot defeat at Brandywine, Pennsylvania.
On the afternoon of the previous day, British Generals Sir William
Howe and Charles Cornwallis had launched a full-scale attack on General
George Washington and the Patriot outpost at Brandywine Creek near
Chadds Ford, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, on the road linking
Baltimore and Philadelphia.
Howe and Cornwallis spilt their 18,000 British troops into two
separate divisions with Howe leading an attack from the front and
Cornwallis circling around and attacking from the right flank. The
morning had provided the British troops with cover from a dense fog, so
General Washington was unaware the British had split into two divisions
and was caught off guard by the oncoming British attack.
Although the Americans were able to slow the advancing British, they
were soon faced with the possibility of being surrounded. Surprised and
outnumbered by the 18,000 British troops to his 11,000 Continentals,
Washington ordered his troops to abandon their posts and retreat.
Defeated, the Continental Army marched north and camped at Germantown,
Pennsylvania. The British abandoned their pursuit of the Continentals
and instead began the British occupation of Philadelphia. Congress,
which had been meeting in Philadelphia, fled first to Lancaster, then to
York, Pennsylvania, and the British took control of the city without
Patriot opposition.
The one-day battle at Brandywine cost the Americans more than 1,100
men killed or captured while the British lost approximately 600 men
killed or injured. To make matters worse, the Patriots were also forced
to abandon most of their cannon to the British victors after their
artillery horses fell in battle.
Upon receiving the news of the American defeat, members of Congress
began sending orders to their state representatives in Maryland, New
Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania asking them to dispatch reinforcements
to join Washington’s beleaguered Continental Army.
On September 12, 1951, former middleweight champion Sugar Ray
Robinson defeats Randy Turpin to win back the belt in front of 61,370
spectators at the Polo Grounds in New York City. Robinson, a New York
City native, had lost the belt to Turpin two months prior in Turpin’s
native London.
By 1951, Sugar Ray Robinson was considered the best pound-for-pound
fighter in boxing history. That summer, Robinson traveled to Great
Britain for a vacation and publicity tour before his scheduled July 10
bout with Turpin, in which Sugar Ray was heavily favored. To the
surprise of his fans around the world, however, the surprisingly strong
Turpin battered Robinson and won the match in a 15-round decision.
Afterward, Robinson requested and was granted a rematch.
Two months later on September 12, the Polo Grounds set a middleweight
fight attendance record for the rematch. The crowd was filled with
well-known personalities from U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur to
stars of film and stage. Robinson, intent on avenging his loss, trained
intensely for the rematch, refusing to once again take his opponent too
lightly. From the first ring of the bell, the 31-year-old Robinson
dictated the pace of the fight to his 23-year-old opponent, and won each
of the first seven rounds decisively. In the eighth round, however,
Robinson appeared to tire, and Turpin fought with a new intensity,
hitting and hurting Robinson for the first time in the fight. In the
ninth round, Turpin delivered numerous right hands to Robinson’s head,
opening a cut over his left eye. Still, Robinson was able to wrest back
control of the fight in the 10th, when he knocked Turpin down with a
right to the jaw. When Turpin was ready to continue, Robinson,
re-energized, unleashed an onslaught to his head and body. Two minutes
and 52 seconds into the 10th round, referee Rudy Goldstein stopped the
fight, and Robinson was showered with adulation from the adoring
hometown crowd.
Robinson retired from boxing in 1965 with 110 knockouts to his
credit. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in
1967.
Considered
one of the greatest boxers of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson held the
world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951, and by 1958, he had become
the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times.
Synopsis
Considered
one of the greatest boxers of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson was born in
1921. He turned pro in 1940 and won his first 40 fights. Over his
25-year career, Robinson won the world welterweight and middleweight
crowns and was dubbed "pound for pound, the best." By 1958, he had
become the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five
times. He finished his career in 1965 with 175 victories. Robinson died
in Culver City, California, in 1989.
Early Years
Sugar
Ray Robinson was born Walker Smith Jr. on May 3, 1921, although the
location is a source of debate. Robinson's birth certificate lists his
place of birth as Ailey, Georgia, while the boxer stated in his
autobiography that he was born in Detroit, Michigan. What is known is
that Robinson grew up in Detroit, and he was 11 years old when his
mother, tired of her husband's absence from the family's life, up and
left the city, moving herself, her son and two daughters to Harlem.
But
New York proved rough in other ways. With little money—Robinson helped
his mother save for an apartment by earning change dancing for strangers
in Times Square—the Smiths built their new life in a section of Harlem
dominated by flophouses and gangsters.
Fearful that her son would
get pulled into this shady world, Robinson's mother turned to the Salem
Methodist Episcopal Church, where a man by the name of George Gainford
had just started a boxing club.
It didn't take much for Robinson,
who'd been a neighbor of heavyweight champ Joe Louis back in Detroit,
to strap on fighting gloves. For the first bout of his career in 1936,
he borrowed the Amateur Athletic Union card of another boxer, whose name
was Ray Robinson, to enter the ring. Robinson wouldn't go by his birth
name for the rest of his career. The nickname "Sugar" came from
Gainford, who had described the young boxer as "sweet as sugar";
reporters soon began using the moniker.
"Sugar Ray Robinson had a nice ring to it," Robinson later said. "Sugar Walker Smith wouldn't have been the same."
The
young boxer quickly moved up the ranks. He won his first Golden Gloves
title (featherweight) in 1939, and then repeated the accomplishment in
1940. He turned pro that same year.
Pro Career
In a career that spanned 25 years, Robinson amassed 175 wins, 110 knockouts and just 19 losses.
Robinson
began his career with an astonishing 40 straight victories and was
called the "uncrowned champion" by boxing fans on account that the mob,
who Robinson refused to play nice with, denied him the chance to fight
for the world welterweight title until after the war. When Robinson
finally did get his shot at the belt in 1946, he took home the crown
with a unanimous 15-round decision over Tommy Bell; Robinson would hold
the welterweight title until 1951. Six years later, Robinson captured
the middleweight title for the first time by defeating Jake LaMotta. By
1958, he had become the first boxer to win a divisional world
championship five times.
Robinson's ability to cross weight
classes caused boxing fans and writers to dub him "pound for pound, the
best," a sentiment that that has not faded over the years. Muhammad Ali
liked to call Robinson "the king, the master, my idol." Robinson
inspired Ali's famous matador style, which he used to defeat Sonny
Liston for the heavyweight title in 1964. In 1984 The Ring magazine placed Robinson No. 1 in its book "The 100 Greatest Boxers of All Time."
Outside
of the ring, Robinson relished his celebrity, parading around Harlem
with a pink Cadillac and making appearances at his high-profile Harlem
nightclub. Wherever he went, he brought a large entourage of trainers,
women and family members. Robinson, who was unapologetic for his lavish
spending, is estimated to have earned more than $4 million as a fighter,
all of which he burned through, forcing him to continue boxing much
longer than he should have.
Robinson finally retired from the
sport for good in 1965. Two years later, he was inducted into the
International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Personal Life
In
his later years, Robinson worked in show business, even doing some
television acting. The work greatly helped salvage his finances and was
the reason he eventually settled in Southern California with his second
wife, Millie. Robinson, who had a son from a previous marriage, helped
raise Millie's two children.
In his last years Robinson battled
Alzheimer's disease and diabetes. He died at the Brotman Medical Center
in Culver City, California, on April 12, 1989.
It is one of boxing’s great contradictions that its very best
fighters, like Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta, try so hard to hurt
each other in fights that intensify as their familiarity increases.
Robinson
beat LaMotta five times in six fights and in many ways they set an
impossible standard for rivalries, rematches and savagery in boxing.
They also did their fighting and talking inside the ropes.
“I
fought Sugar Ray so many times it’s a wonder I didn’t get diabetes,”
LaMotta would repeat during the comedy routine he first used to make a
few extra dollars during his days running a strip club. As far as I know
he still uses it as part of his routine, which was made famous by
Robert De Niro in the Raging Bull movie.
In their last fight,
which took place in 1951 and is now known as the “St Valentine’s Day
Massacre”, Robinson stopped LaMotta in the 13th round to win the
middleweight world title. The action in that fight is often so brutal
and the pair push each other to such physical extremes, each staggering
like drunks on occasion, that its modern equivalent would bring out the
abolitionists. “If the referee had held up another 30 more seconds,
Sugar Ray would have collapsed from hitting me,” said LaMotta.
The
Robinson and LaMotta fights took place over a nine-year period in rings
pitched in America’s best boxing cities during the Forties and Fifties.
In 1943 they met for the second time and the score was 1-0 in
Robinson’s favour from their opening fight the year before. Robinson was
40 and zero going into that second fight at the Olympia Stadium in
Detroit and would win the world welterweight title a couple of years
later. LaMotta was bigger, meaner and desperate for revenge; Robinson
was saved by the bell in one round and lost on points.
“Every
single round with Sugar Ray was hard, every fight was close,” LaMotta
said. “No foul blows or nothing when we fought. We stood there
toe-to-toe and banged away. He was the real greatest.”
In 2001 I
spent a day and night with LaMotta and his seventh wife in New York and
even after 50 years he still talked about his true rival with awe.
Their
third fight was just 21 days later back at the Olympia Stadium.
Robinson was dropped for a nine count in round seven but boxed with
skill to win and make the score 2-1 in the series. A break of 21 days
between hard fights is absurd by modern standards, but Robinson took
another 10-round fight in between, which was a close scrap as he just
sneaked a win over California Jackie Wilson.
Robinson was 44 when
he finally retired in 1965 after 202 fights. LaMotta was not his only
repeat rival but he was his most brutal. “Jake never stopped coming,
never stopped throwing punches and never stopped talking,” Robinson
said. “We fought so many times, we were close to getting married. But,
you know, you hit that guy with everything and he would just act like
you are crazy.”
It was never personal with LaMotta and Robinson,
never about insults and when their savagery culminated in the
unforgettable “Massacre” they had created a very special place in boxing
history. They never hated each other, they were just two men struggling
to get a living.
This Saturday the first in a fine series of
domestic rematches born of fierce rivalries will take place when Nathan
Cleverly and Tony Bellew finally meet again; in 2011 Cleverly won their
first fight, when one judge gave it to him by five rounds, but Bellew
has not stopped chasing Cleverly and in many ways has created the
rematch with his relentless declarations that he was robbed. It is a
good fight once again.
There is no denying that Cleverly and
Bellew this week, and Dereck Chisora and Tyson Fury on the following
Saturday, have helped hype their promotions with a long series of
indecent clashes.
Robinson and LaMotta never had to be rude or make
threats to each other to put bums on seats in any of the cities where
they traded leather and, I would argue, the British quartet could have
held their tongues, talked about proper fights, the significance of
rematches and still made their money. The fights will be good and all
the swearing, silly claims and stunts will be forgotten.