Cassius Clay worked the corner for Sugar Ray Robinson in Jamaica

More than 50 years ago, something historical occurred in Jamaica, and many persons looking on, perhaps, never realised its significance. It was the night of Saturday, March 6, 1965, at Sabina Park, in Kingston, Jamaica, that world heavyweight boxing champion Cassius Clay, who later changed his name to Muhammad Ali and declared to all the world that he was "the greatest", appeared at the ringside as a second for a boxer, Sugar Ray Robinson, who the world today recognises as one of the greatest boxers to have graced the boxing ring.
Robinson, who still has an unmatched ring record, was a many-time world champion, as a welterweight and a middleweight, and was in Jamaica to fight another renown American fighter, Jimmy Beecham, on a fight card promoted by Lucien Chen. World famous trainer Angelo Dundee, the man who guided both Clay and Robinson, was asked by Chen to get Clay to come to Jamaica with Robinson to add some pizzazz to the card. Clay not only came, but agreed to be Dundee's assistant at the ringside.

GREAT SHOWMAN

Clay (Ali), who was one of the greatest showmen to grace the boxing scene, had just started to make his mark on the world scene after winning the world heavyweight title by scoring a sensational victory over Sonny Liston. He was still, however, humble enough and man enough to carry the bucket with water, ice and sponges and act as a second, for Robinson.
I saw it happen and enjoyed the moment, and it is only now, looking back over 50 years, that one recognises the significance of that gesture. The heavyweight champion of the world assisted his trainer that night in working the corner of a boxing icon.
Robinson was, without doubt, one of the greatest boxers the world has seen. He boxed from 1940 to 1965, so when he fought in Jamaica in 1965 at age 44, he was on his farewell tour. What a tour it turned out to be! He had 14 fights that year, won eight, including a knockout victory over Beecham, lost five, and one was ruled a no-contest. After his fight on November 10 that year, a loss to Jimmy Archer on points, he decided to end his career. His phenomenal record then was 173 victories (108 by knockout), 19 losses and six draws. Wow!!!!
When Clay was introduced to the public that night, he was his usual exuberant self and declared that he was glad to be in Jamaica and wanted to fight here one day. The opponents he had in mind then were Floyd Patterson and George Chuvalo, but that, he said, would be after he beat Sonny Liston a second time. He did fight and beat all three men, but, unfortunately, not in Jamaica.

MEMORABLE NIGHT

The Robinson fight, that memorable night in March, was dramatic and short. Robinson seemed anxious to end the fight, and it was surmised that he wanted to take care of business quickly because there was a steady drizzle.
Fighting with what was referred to as "tigerish ferocity and dramatic swiftness", he stalked Beecham, distracted him with jabs, and then a left to the body and a right to the head put him down for the first time. He was put down two more times in quick succession and was counted out at one minute 48 seconds on the second round by referee Emilio Sanchez. Long after the fight ended and he recovered his senses, Beecham struggled with his manager to allow him to go back into the middle to "finish" Robinson.
Clay, the man who later made a remarkable career as Muhammad Ali, his Muslim name, died last month (June 3), and the world paid tribute to him in many magnificent ways. He made two other memorable visits to Jamaica, one in 1974, when he was given the keys to the City of Kingston, and the other in 1987.

Congress receives news of defeat at Brandywine

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.

Sugar Ray Robinson wins back belt

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.

Sugar Ray Robinson Biography

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.

Steve Bunce: Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake LaMotta created the perfect ring rivalry

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.