Six brutal fights, fought over nine years, between two of the greatest fighters ever. Today in 1942, two legendary fighters – real legends, not merely good fighters who were showered with this overused word – met for the first time.
Sugar Ray Robinson’s lofty place in boxing lore was as cemented as the chin of his former six-time rival, Jake La Motta.
Barry McGuigan, writing in his regular boxing column for The Mirror, makes his case for Marvelous Marvin Hagler being not only the greatest middleweight ever, but also a man who would have had too much for fellow legends Sugar Ray Robinson and Carlos Monzon.
It’s been said many times how Sugar Ray Robinson could do it all; he could fight going backward, he fight coming forward, Sugar could land a hefty punch, and he could take one, Robinson could dance, he could slug, he could indeed do it all in the ring.
Referred to by many boxing historians as the finest boxer ever, pound-for-pound, Sugar Ray Robinson achieved oh, so much during his astonishing ring career.
The greatest of the greats can often go on for far too long, attempting to do what came so effortlessly to them once.
Testimony to the vast number of pro fights the legendary, incomparable “Sugar” Ray Robinson had, is the fact that, when looking up Robinson’s record on invaluable website BoxRec, one has to study three pages, not just one.
It’s no myth, instead a true story, that Paul McCartney, arguably the finest songwriter of the 20th century, dreamed one of his finest compositions: ‘Yesterday’ And it’s no myth, instead a true story, that Sugar Ray Robinson, arguably the finest boxer of the 20th century (if not of all-time) dreamed ahead of one of his word title fights that he would actually kill his opponent: Jimmy Doyle.
It was 67 years ago this month that the immortal Sugar Ray Robinson, then the middleweight champion and fresh off a one-punch kayo of challenger Rocky Graziano in April, attempted to wrest the light-heavyweight crown from Cleveland’s Joey Maxim, who outweighed him by 15 ½ pounds.
62 years ago today, the great, the incomparable, the immortal Sugar Ray Robinson knocked out the rock-chinned Gene Fullmer with one blisteringly superb punch at the Chicago Stadium.