A Boxing Memory: Sugar Ray Robinson

A Boxing Memory: Sugar Ray Robinson

By Garry White

‘You never got me down, Ray.” Did he say it? Not a chance. On the wrong end of the white heat of Ray Robinson’s lightning rod punches, it is doubtful whether he was capable of saying anything at all.

That Valentine’s Day in 1951 proved to be a rare failure of LaMotta’s usual simmering bombast. But when it came to boxing ‘Sugar’ Ray, always – except for one lost decision in February 1943 that was avenged a mere three weeks later – had the ‘Bronx Bull’s measure.

The win column permanently records a five-to-one thrashing over nine years in favour of the lavishly talented man, who although he hailed from the southern state of Georgia was synonymous with the bright lights of New York’s, Harlem. How those defeats must have irked LaMotta. A tight guard, a blistering pressure fighter work rate, and a chin modelled from reinforced steel were never quite enough, despite how far he reached into the recesses of his black heart.

And black it was. To such an extent that I doubt even LaMotta would have protested this description too heavily. It, therefore, makes Martin Scorsese’s message at the end of the acclaimed movie Raging Bull all the more unfathomable. In white typeset, he argues as the end credit’s role: ‘Once I was blind and now, I see.’

It suggests less a forgiveness that LaMotta himself never deserved or sought, but moreover, a Lazarus-like rejuvenation of his polluted soul. This is patently laughable. LaMotta’s only transformation: from street bum to well-heeled champion, to an obese loser performing abysmal gags in empty rundown bars, was powered by the movie itself.

Scorsese and the princely acting talents of Robert De Niro pulled LaMotta’s name back from the forgotten back pages and the street side gutter. They rehabilitated him and recast him once again as a superstar. In fairness, they didn’t gloss over the seamier sides of his character: the violent paranoia, the wife-beating; but they did conveniently leave out LaMotta’s confessed admissions of rape.

The movie elevated him to that of a pop-culture icon. But one who went through no metamorphosis of character. The only change elicited was the ability to get rich and renew his fame off the back of it. 

That was in 1980 but I first saw the movie only in 1994. One of the other kids in sixth form had recorded it off the Sky Movie channel for me, and I watched it repeatedly over several weeks. I am slightly ashamed to say that LaMotta became something of a hero to me directly after. There was much to admire in his no-holds-barred fighting style, bent as it was into a sheet-metal will, that allowed him to reject the notion of accumulated pain. He walked through it imperviously, his inner desire so formidable that although he could be stopped, he couldn’t be knocked down, at least not until his 103rd fight in the last bitter dregs of his career, and never by the extraordinary Ray Robinson. A man like La Motta would have chalked that down as a victory of sorts. 

But when it comes to LaMotta’s character, there was little to commend it. In my thoughts over the years, he has slipped from his hero status to something of a vicious pariah. If you take away the fighting and the undoubted courage under fire, then there is little to love about the man from The Bronx.

When I was growing up, there was only one ‘Sugar’ Ray. The name had been reappropriated, perhaps fittingly, by the quicksilver Ray Leonard from Wilmington, North Carolina. A man whose showbiz razzamatazz was then reminiscent to me of Apollo Creed from the Rocky films. It was left to my grandad and others to educate me on the original ‘Sugar’ Ray. The languid figure on those scratchy black and white news reels. I remember him standing in the front garden talking in hushed tones with his neighbour on the Spring Day in 1989 when Robinson passed away after a hopeless battle with Alzheimer’s disease; itself the fight games equivalent of ‘Died of wounds’.

Men of a certain age understood Ray Robinson and his pre-eminence in ring mythology. Sadly, they have all now mostly passed, and the real ‘Sugar’ Ray is commended only to the history books. Yet among students of boxing’s ancient lore, his position as its number one exponent is sacrosanct. You’ll still find him there unquestionably at the top of most knowledgeable students’ pound-for-pound ‘GOAT’ [oh, how I hate that acronym!] lists. To such an extent, that one of boxings greatest misconceptions is that the term ‘Pound-for-Pound’ was invented for him back in the 50s. It doesn’t matter that this is untrue. The fact that so many believe it to be so speaks volumes for Robinson’s primacy among men of all weight divisions.

But disappointingly, among the ever-increasing ranks of what is correct but perhaps impolitely termed the ‘casual fan’ his name recognition is now probably lower than the fictional Rocky Balboa or Apollo Creed. Conor Benn or the Widow Twankey pantomime act that represents Tommy Fury and Jake Paul would undoubtedly have the measure of him as well. I guess this is what the advance of time has always done. Dixie Dean once banged in 60 goals in a top-flight season, but who of today’s Premier League, ‘Greatest League in the World’ shallow sycophants would care to remember him?

Perhaps more cruelly, even LaMotta now probably outstrips him. That sweeping movie with the haunting Pietro Mascagni soundtrack has immortalised and rejuvenated the Bull for a global audience. It doesn’t matter that it was more than 40 years ago. It is still beloved by movie fans and arthouse geeks alike who would otherwise care little for boxing. LaMotta’s volatile temperament and the Soprano-esque nature of his acquaintances make it a story whose appeal is timeless.

Yet, outside of a television documentary, Robinson is still waiting many years after his death for a similar act of recognition. If speculation is to be believed, there is a project underway that will correct this unforgivable lapse. With the working title of Sweet Thunder [coined from Wil Haygood’s 2011 biography of the same name] British actor and writer David Oyelowo is currently working on a screenplay that has been ten years in the making. 

Born Walker Smith Jr, ‘Sugar’ Ray Robinson fought a now remarkable 201 times over a quarter-of-a-century of ring action. Before that, he had a flawless amateur record with successive victories in the 1939 and 1940 editions of the New York Golden Gloves. Despite compiling a formidable record of 73-1-1 at welterweight, he had to wait until his sixth year as a pro, due to his refusal to cooperate with the shadowy mafia figures that controlled the sport- to win his first professional title by outpointing Tommy Bell in December 1946. In his first defence the following year, he endured the sad death of opponent Jimmy Doyle following a heavy knockdown in the eighth round. Famously, Robinson had received a premonition in the days leading up to the fight that it would end in tragedy and had to be persuaded by a priest to go through with the match-up. Hearing afterwards that Doyle had been pursuing his boxing career in order to buy his mother a house, a distraught Robinson donated his next four fight purses to Doyle’s mother to ensure that the promise was fulfilled.

Robinson held the belt for four years, albeit defending it only sporadically before moving up to middleweight. Increasing difficulty in making weight and access to higher profile opposition were his chief aims for advancing to 160 lbs. Including his beating of LaMotta the following year in thirteen painful rounds, he won and lost the middleweight title a remarkable five times over nine years, which also included a two-year retirement hiatus following an unsuccessful challenge for Joey Maxim’s light heavyweight crown.

Many of these fights still retain their primacy in the boxing canon. They include the seismic points reverse to Randolph Turpin at London’s Earls Court in July 1951 that was subsequently overturned a mere 64 days later at New York’s Polo Grounds via dramatic tenth-round stoppage. Successful defences against Carl ‘Bobo’ Olsen and the legendary Rocky Graziano followed before heat exhaustion thwarted Robinson in his bid for three-weight world title glory against the hard-hitting Maxim. Amid mercury-tipping heat on a sweltering afternoon in The Bronx, ‘Sugar’ Ray was forced to retire on his stool at the end of the thirteenth round. He had been way out in front on all three cards at the time, and it was to be the only occasion in Robinson’s career that he failed to stay the distance. 

Boxing lured him back a little over two years later. Facing off as an underdog against old foe ‘Bobo’ Olsen, he knocked out the shop-worn Hawaiian in only the second round to reclaim his title. They were matched again the following year, with Olsen this time being stretched out on the canvass in the fourth. The following year Robinson lost his covetted strap via a unanimous fifteen-round decision to Gene Fullmer before comprehensively knocking out [KO 5] the Utah man in the rematch with a left hook that boxing folklore remembers simply as ‘the perfect punch’. The same scenario was then repeated one final time, with Robinson firstly losing his title via split decision to Carmen Basilio only to win it back by a similarly narrow margin six months later. In early 1960, the championship belt slipped from the now 38-year-old champion’s grasp for the final time. Paul Pender, a former firefighter from Massachusetts, outpointed him over the championship distance. The rematch later that year yielded the same result.

Robinson fought on until the last days of 1965 before being floored for a nine-count by Joey Archer in Pittsburgh and failing to get the nod on any of the judges’ cards. The final ledger recorded 174 wins [109 by KO], six draws, and nineteen losses [just one inside the distance].

Robinson faced the familiar struggles in retirement. During his career, he earned over four million dollars yet still ended up penniless in a small apartment. He scratched around for little bits of film and television work, occasionally cast in the role of a broken-down ex-fighter. A lavish retirement celebration was thrown for him at Madison Square Garden, and a huge gaudy trophy was presented. However, so hard up was Robinson. He didn’t own a single stick of furniture in his spartan home that could carry its weight. 

All the purse money and outside earnings had gone; spirited away with the speed and precision of one of those quicksilver jabs that had made him famous. It would be easy to cast him as, yet another easily led fighter, duped by hucksters and his own free-spending frivolities, but that would be forgetting the whole purses over the years that Robinson had generously gifted to charity. Eminent boxing writer Bert Sugar once remarked that “Robinson could knock you out going backwards.” Sadly, he couldn’t do the same to life. His impecunious financial status was not aided by a diagnosis of diabetes, and ultimately, his deteriorating mental state was put down to Alzheimer’s. 

Boxing rarely creates a ‘Land fit for heroes’. Those that had gloried in their bravery and skill in the ring, at once choosing to turn their faces away as the lights fade beneath their heroes’ scarred brows; the docile punch-drunk ex-fighter still a comedy staple since the days of ‘Slapsie’ Maxie Rosenbloom. Robinson must have faced the realisation of all these truths as the bitter chill of age set in and the entourage -a term invented for him, no less – slunk silently off into the night. 

He died aged a mere 67 in April 1989. And as everything left him amid the gathering fog of Alzheimer’s, it is to be hoped that he was still able to cradle in his arms at least one or two fragments of memories from that storied career. To still see those bright lights at The Garden, or that Valentine’s Day in 1951, when he broke Jake LaMotta’s heart whilst wresting the middleweight championship of the world from him.

But mercifully, we no longer recall that unsteady and faded version of Ray Robinson. If we close our eyes, we see only ‘Sugar’ Ray. Not through the eyes of La Motta or the movie Raging Bull but as he was set perfectly in his time and place. His dancing shoes were loosely tied with the ribbon of sweet-scented combinations. Punches that timed to the rhythm of the heart and that were born entirely from practised instinct and the razzamatazz of stardust given to nobody else before or since. 

Close those eyes a little tighter. Somewhere a pink Cadillac illuminates the black and white dreams of gawping passers-by on a busy Harlem street, its engine slowly humming as the man behind the wheel lights up a golden smile and gives them a gentle wave… and then it is gone.

‘There goes the champ,’ they say. ‘There goes the champ.’