201 fights and only ever stopped once, this due to the scorching heat, evil heat that floored the referee for the count beforehand. The one fighter “The Greatest,” Muhammad Ali said was greater than he was. A beautiful fighting machine who was so elegant in the most brutal of sports that the term “poetry in motion” could have been invented for him. The only man to have won the world middleweight crown a staggering five times…..
Sugar Ray Robinson, the man born Walker Smith Jr. The greatest to ever lace up the gloves. Today in 1989, Robinson passed away, this at the relatively young age of 67. Having done what so many of the special fighters who so love the sport do, and that’s fought on for far too long, Robinson was ravaged by Alzheimer’s at the end, or for around the last eight years of his life.
As such, and so cruelly, Robinson was unable to remember all the great fights, all his great ring triumphs. All he meant to the world and always would. But one of the ironic things about Sugar Ray, is the fact that he stated numerous times that he did not love boxing, that he wasn’t a fight fan. Sugar Ray fought purely for the money; his real love dancing, his goal to make it as big in showbiz as he had in the ring.
But the money ran out after Ray’s initial retirement – coming as it did after he suffered heat prostration during his failed attempt at winning the world light heavyweight title from Joey Maxim in the summer of 1952 – and the tap dancing shoes and tux were pretty swiftly replaced by the boxing boots and gloves.
But even at age 36, 37, Robinson was still great, still the best pound-for-pound fighter in the world. And those further runs as middleweight king came. And so it was, in May of 1957, that Sugar Ray scored THE finest, most exquisite one-punch knockout in the history of the sport. Sugar’s icing of the rock-chinned Gene Fulmer remains a thing of stunning beauty, and it would never have been given to the boxing world had Robinson made it big on the stage the way he had hoped would be the case.
Robinson was at his lightning best as a welterweight, but the fight footage is lacking. As such, we all celebrate Sugar Ray the middleweight. So many great fights, some wars, some one-sided masterpieces – some ending in a violent, blurred flash.
Sugar Ray did it all. He should have lived way longer, and far happier than he did at the end. But Sugar Ray Robinson the greatest ever pound-for-pound will live forever in the memories of fight fans all around the globe.
Ask yourself with sincere honesty, would ANY welterweight, light-middleweight, middleweight, or super middleweight fighting today have what could be called a solid chance of beating the prime or the near-prime Sugar Ray? Heck, what about today’s best at 175 pounds!?
