‘I met Sugar Ray so often that I nearly got diabetes’

SHARM DE ALWIS

“I met Sugar Ray so often that I nearly got diabetes.” That was, of course, Jake La Motta who battled Sugar Ray Robinson in the ring six times, losing on points five times and winning once.

As a middle-weight, nobody beat Sugar Ray twice. He lost once each to La Motta, Randolph Turpin, Bobo Olson, Gene Fulmer and Carmen Basilio but he avenged the defeats furiously in the return fights.

In the process he retained the middle-weight title on a record number of five times. It really was his laid back life-style that was responsible for his losses. Like Joe Louis until the advent of Marciano, no one, just no one got the better of Sugar Ray twice.

Sugar Ray had deadly combinations, mixing the punches in rapid succession and he had the speed to dominate, the resilience to take the best shot thrown at him and he had the power to put them on the canvas.

Pure Power

In the middle-weight division the focus shifts from speed and agility to pure power and he was equal to the calling.

As a welter-weight champ he had never been beaten in eight encounters until he relinquished the title on winning the middle-weight belt. When he took on Joey Maxim for the light-heavyweight title, he won all thirteen rounds and was beaten by the heat which prevented him coming out for the fourteenth round. The referee collapsed earlier.

Sugar Ray Leonard was told, “You call yourself Sugar Ray? You’d better be good.” Other middle-weight boxers in Sugar Ray’s class as posh exponents have been Stanley Ketchel, Harry Greb and Joe Gans.

But it is Sugar Ray who has been universally acclaimed as the best boxer, pound for pound, a rating endorsed by Joe Louis, Sugar Ray Leonard and by Cassius Clay aka Mohamed Ali who would often call himself the greatest but said of Sugar Ray, “the king the master, my idol.”

Except for a few like Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Rocky Marciano and Mohamed Ali who decked the heavy-weight division with an aura of colour and might, it has always been the middle-weight division that produced exceptionally brilliant and flamboyant men - Jake La Motta, Tony Zale who was called the man of steel, Marcel Cerdan who had an untimely death in an air crash whilst still in the prime of his fighting days, Mickey Walker, Tiger Flowers, Harry Greb, Stanley Ketchel who took on the mighty Jack Johnson and even floored him for a count, Kid McCoy, the colourful Rocky Graziano, Randolph Turpin, Bobo Olson, Gene Fulmer, Billy Papke, Bob Fitzsimmons who graduated to win the heavy-weight title by beating James J.Corbett and patenting the solar plexus punch, Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns and both Sugar Rays.

Sugar Ray Robinson was inducted to the International Boxing Hall of fame in 1990. As an amateur he won all his 85 bouts with 69 by knock-outs, 40 of which were in the first round!

Professional

He turned professional in 1940 at the age of 19 to hold the welter weight title from 1946 to ‘51 when he gave up the title on winning the middle-weight crown.

His professional career lasted 26 years and intermittently, he was an entertainer on the Night Club scene.

He is the originator of the “entourage”. He had thirteen in his team and his pink cadillac was taken even to Paris when he was an entertainer and kissed four times the French President’s wife, twice on each cheek. His entourage included a secretary, barber, masseur, voice coach, a coterie of trainers, beautiful women, a dwarf mascot and life-long manager, George Gainsford.

As a youth, Sugar Ray idolised Henry Armstrong and Joe Louis and actually lived on the same block as Louis when Sugar was eleven and Joe seventeen. He first married when he was sixteen and as a little boy it was his sister Marie who would fight his street fights.

Even though he refused to cooperate with the mafia which delayed his fight plans, he beat Tommy Bell for the welter-weight title and defended it against Kid Gavilan and Henry Armstrong when the latter was in need of funds.

He donated to cancer research his entire purse except one dollar from the fight with Fugari.On his campaign trail he also beat Rocky Graziano, a fighter equally flamboyant who inspired the film, “Somebody up there loves me”.

According to boxing analyst Bert Sugar, Robinson could deliver a knock-out punch going backwards.

He was efficient with both hands and his repertoire with equal speed and power ranged from the bolo punch to the hook with a few he made up on the spot.

All in all, Sugar Ray Robinson evoked hero worship and remains the most colourful boxer who ever graced the ring or outside it and with his glamorous restaurant ‘Sugar Ray’s’ which has hosted celebrities like Frank Sinatra, Jackie Gleason, Nat King Cole, Joe Louis, Lena Horne among others.