Sugar Ray Robinson

For so many historians, Sugar Ray Robinson ranks as the single greatest fighter of all time. The man born Walker Smith could really do it all: he could take a shot, he could move like lightning, he could fight on the inside, he could fight coming forward, he could fight going backwards, he had immense reserves of stamina, he often fought at what can easily be looked at as a reckless pace.

Sugar Ray Robinson scored so many scintillating knockouts, too many to keep track of without reaching for the record book. The original, and, for many people, the ONLY Sugar Ray, took out Gene Fullmer with arguably the finest, most expertly placed left hook in boxing history.

Sugar Ray Robinson was a fighter who simply could not quit. Already recognized as the greatest fighter ever pound-for-pound (the term was created for Robinson), Ray was, on this day in 1958, a FIVE-TIME middleweight king.

If you ever wanted to see how vastly, how greatly, how severely the sport of boxing has changed over the years, you could do far worse than to go back 80 years – to 1942, and look at what the hottest contender/upcoming superstar/guaranteed future world champion was doing.

Talk about a great fight to start off the boxing year. It was January 2, 1957 when the great, indeed the incomparable, Sugar Ray Robinson met the iron-chinned Gene Fullmer for the first time.

Was there ever a greater, indeed sweeter fighter than the original Sugar Ray, Ray Robinson? To this day, fight historians, fans, fellow fighters … in fact just about everyone with any interest in boxing, they all bow down willingly and give the man born Walker Smith Jr the distinction of greatest boxer ever.

It was, and is, THE biggest boxing upset ever scored by a British fighter. On July 10, 1951, in London, England, Randolph Turpin won a clear 15-round decision over the great Sugar Ray Robinson to take the world middleweight crown.