Pound for Pound
Page 24
Tyson had never stood toe-to-toe with Sugar, but Joey Giardello, who held the middleweight title from 1963 to 1965, had. “He was really a great puncher,” he told Phil Berger of the New York Times. “A sharp puncher. His hand speed was out of the ordinary. He had smartness and quickness. He was a legend.” Bobo Olson agreed. “He was the greatest boxer to ever step into the ring,” he said. “He was the best. I tried to copy his style a few times but I couldn’t do it. He was too good.”
“When Sugar Ray stepped into the ring,” said music mogul Berry Gordy after the funeral, “he was swift, elegant, magnificent and deadly. This man was unique.”
Author and sports historian Kenneth Shropshire summed up Sugar this way: “Although not without his faults, Sugar Ray Robinson is one important athlete to look to. He understood the commodification of the black performer in the sports and entertainment industries and made the system serve his own needs, all the while displaying remarkable pride, power, and grace. Many athletes have taken Sugar Ray’s name, but few, if any, will be able to live up to all that he embodied.”
“I will never forget the pointers he gave me when we trained together at the gym on 137th Street and Broadway,” said Jackie Tonawanda, the first woman to be licensed to box in the State of New York. “He was always so generous and patient with me. I have a picture of us that I will always cherish.”1
“He was the greatest,” said Max Schmeling, who fought Joe Louis in two memorable contests. “A distance fighter. A half-distance fighter. An infighter. Scientific. He was wonderful to see.”
“He was a fistic genius,” said the dean of fight trainers, Ray Arcel. “He had grace and rhythm. He could hit and not get hit. You got such pleasure watching him; people used to go to the gym just to see him shadowbox.”
“A lot of people say there was a comparison between Sugar Ray Robinson and Sugar Ray Leonard,” said Leonard. “Believe me, there was no comparison.”
Trainer Al Silvani concurred. “Sugar Ray Robinson had two hundred seventy-four fights,” he began, exaggerating the total number of professional fights Sugar had. “How could you put them in the same category?…Sugar Ray Robinson fought the toughest guys in the world continuously…. And don’t forget, he fought fighters like Jake LaMotta six times—at that time you couldn’t pick your own opponent.”2
In the end, in the twilight of his life, he was but a shadow of his former self, and could not be comforted by the victories of the past. “He didn’t even remember me,” Gene Fullmer said at Sugar’s funeral. And then Fullmer added: “But they all remembered him.”
Filmmaker/comedian Woody Allen remembered Sugar this way: “I was so crazy about Ray Robinson, who was an amazing fighter. I had a chance to have dinner in his house and to spend some time with him, and so I have a very positive feeling about him as an athlete and a man. He was someone I idolized and then met, and who lived up to my feelings about him. Many don’t live up to your expectations. I won’t say who, but the ones who did are Robinson, Stan Musial, and Groucho.”
These expressions from celebrities and fight authorities are part of a consensus on Sugar’s lofty place in the boxing pantheon, and his legend seems to increase each year, given the mediocrity of the current crop of fighters. Because of changing social conditions, particularly the expanded opportunities for black men in America, we may never produce another homegrown champion of Sugar’s caliber. He was a dazzling personality of incomparable athletic ability. It was hard to believe that someone with such playboy good looks could be so deadly lethal in the ring. And he was indubitably the ringmaster, subduing a “Tiger,” a “Bull,” and a Buffalo.
The final bell of Sugar’s life has sounded, but as long as old men gather in musty gyms and reminisce about the good old days, their tales will invariably linger on memories of Sugar. “After Sugar, they threw away the mold,” said ninety-four-year-old Langley Waller, who was a witness to Sugar’s life in and out of the ring. “He was the original, the one and only.”
EPILOGUE
Pound for pound, punch for punch, Sugar was deemed beyond comparison in the ring. “Sugar Ray Robinson, without a doubt, was a great fighter and would have been a great fighter in any era,” boxing historian Herb Goldman told Katherine Dunn of the Internet’s Cyber Boxing Zone.1 And while there have been imitators, they are mere holograms when it comes to rivaling the genuine article. You can combine all the more recent and notable “Sugars”—Ramos (54–7–4); Ray Seales (56–8–3); Ray Leonard (36–3–1); and Shane Mosley (39–3)—and collectively they have had only twelve more professional fights and exceeded Sugar’s victory total by a slight margin of ten (though Mosley, as of this writing, has yet to hang up his gloves, despite two miserable recent performances, against Vernon Forrest and Winky Wright). There was Sugar nonpareil and then there were the near-great pretenders, who have nothing to be ashamed of in their failure to match up to the original’s majesty, or to come close to his legend. Perhaps Jeff Ryan of Ring is right—the other Sugars ought to “apologize for their conceit.”
The other Sugars may not have an argument about Sugar Ray Robinson’s supremacy, but there are many boxing historians and authorities who vigorously disagree about the “pound for pound” designation, particularly those advocates of Muhammad Ali. As the old axiom contends, any comparison is odious, and to extend one across time and beyond weight categories is even more problematic. If it were a matter of ring record, then Rocky Marciano’s forty-nine victories without a defeat is the standard, despite his conquests over Louis, Walcott, Charles, and Moore when they were all far beyond their prime. For sheer punching power, it’s hard to think anyone hit any harder or more effectively than Joe Louis. Jack Johnson was a defensive wizard, and few could match Jack Dempsey as an infighter. When it comes to ring prowess and cunning, then Ali, Sandy Saddler, and Joe Gans pop into mind. And no one could take a punch like Jake LaMotta. Of course then again, Sugar had a sizable portion of all these skills.
In 2003, Boxing Monthly, a British publication, began running a sports series entitled “Judge and Jury,” in which sports experts offered their choices about who was the greatest performer in his or her particular field. In the boxing category, Ali and Sugar were the final choices. Of the first four experts to weigh in on the issue, two were in favor of Ali and two were for Sugar. How four experts compare with five hundred sportswriters who voted Ali the best of all time in 1976 is something to ponder.
In any case, it was left to Neil Allen, a former boxing correspondent of the Times (London) and the London Evening Standard, to break the deadlock. “It’s Gotta Be Sugar,” the headline of Allen’s article declared in a pink that would have rivaled Sugar’s Caddy. Allen made his case based on two important factors. For one, the global population of people Sugar’s size surpassed that of the population of people—and potential boxers—of Ali’s size. “Even today, when youngsters are bigger and taller than their predecessors half a century ago, flyweights and heavyweights can be regarded as a comparative minority,” Allen proposed. Flyweights and heavyweights comprised the ends of a perfect bell-shaped curve, and the welter-and middleweights made up the majority, where Sugar was king. “He had thousands of potential opponents compared with the hundreds” in the other weight divisions, Allen noted.2
Moreover, he continued, during the time in which Sugar went to battle in the world’s arenas, the men were in much better shape, given the large number of ex-servicemen. Allen’s third point, that the competition Sugar faced on average was better than Ali’s, is less convincing. Can a case be made based on a comparison between the likes of Sonny Liston, Jimmy Ellis, Joe Frazier, Ken Norton, Floyd Patterson, George Foreman, Leon Spinks, and Larry Holmes, who pulled on the gloves against Ali, against Fritzie Zivic, Tiger Jones, Artie Levine, Randy Turpin, Carmen Basilio, Gene Fullmer, Bobo Olson, Rocky Graziano, Kid Gavilan, and the six grueling standoffs with Jake LaMotta that Sugar had to face? Was Joe Frazier equivalent to LaMotta? How did Zivic compare with Ken Norton? It’s hard to say.
Also, when you place Ali’s and Sugar’s records side by side—the latter had more knockouts than the former had fights—consideration has to be given to the different eras in which they fought. We can never know how well bare-knuckled fighter Tom Molineaux, born in captivity in 1784, would have fared against the relatively modern fighter Sam Langford, and there is no way to determine the outcome of a bout between a fighter from one generation challenging another of comparable skills from another. And Sugar against Ali? Sugar wouldn’t have stood a chance, given the weight difference. Or would he have?
Archie Moore, the exceptional light heavyweight, believed that Ike Williams, Sugar’s contemporary, was the best welterweight he ever saw. But Williams believed Sugar was the best in the business. “I wouldn’t fight Sugar Ray because I never could have beaten him, the greatest fighter ever,” he told a reporter at Boxing Monthly. “When I mentioned the possibility of such a fight to my wife she grinned and said: ‘Ike, that’s one fight I don’t want to see.’ I didn’t either.”
This brings me to the end of my biographical bout with the great Sugar. In the ring, Sugar was easily apprehended; it was simply a matter of enjoying his wizardry and understanding the skills he combined to make him one of boxing’s immortals. He possessed an exquisite jab that snapped the bull-like neck of Jake LaMotta. His left hook, no matter the trajectory, was invested with poetic power. Then there was his potent right cross, which often followed the former punches. Few fighters had the quickness to elude this combination or the stamina to withstand a series of such blows.
But as a man he was complex, with many intriguing contradictions. While he gathered about him an ensemble of well-wishers, he often ignored his immediate family. One can criticize his lavish lifestyle—the houses, clothes, cars, and parties—but he also contributed thousands of dollars to charitable organizations. More than one informant spoke of his gentleness with children; but then, there are the reports of his abuse of the women in his life.
Ultimately, Sugar was a gladiator, a warrior in what many have seen as the cruelest sport. He was not a minister, an intellectual, a politician, or a community leader professing the highest principles of integrity.
After gathering the books, magazines, microfilms, films, newspapers, and interviews about him, I am undiminished in my admiration for Sugar the boxer. He remains the indisputable pound-for-pound greatest fighter who ever lived. We may be disappointed that he was not of sterling character and was flawed, as we all are, but what he did with most of the moments of his life led to his reaching the pinnacle of his profession. And perhaps, as the poet John Keats said about truth being beauty and beauty truth, that is all we need to know.
Sifting the gems from his second wife Edna Mae Robinson’s memoir and listening to her son, I gained another perspective on Sugar, that dark side of his personality that controlled the retinue surrounding him like a benevolent dictator. The more the sycophants around him vied for his attention, the more he ignored them. He could be as generous to strangers as he was penurious with friends and relatives. While there are many moments in his autobiography where he appears to be absolutely forthcoming, too often he is elusive and extremely selective in what he chooses to recall. It is difficult to get to the man beyond the smoky arenas and shadowy dressing rooms. Paradoxical? Bipolar? Dual personalities? A dissembler? These are some of the words with which Sugar has been labeled, but they may be too simple and neat to define the man’s complexities. After three years of my plying through books, articles, photos, memorabilia, and interviews, Sugar remains a cipher, defying a writer with the same darting moves, the same clever feints he employed against fighters on the prowl.
But even an icon is at the mercy of nostalgia and market forces. Recently, I was stunned to see Sugar’s image on billboards advertising Nintendo, in which he can be seen delivering a devastating blow to an opponent on his way to the canvas. This photo was taken from an actual fight, probably in the late forties when he was busy defending his welterweight championship. The Nintendo game, however, is a simulated one, in which Sugar can be matched with such powerful contemporary heavyweights as Lennox Lewis or Evander Holyfield, and depending on your ability to control the joystick or the remote, it becomes possible for the smaller Sugar to knock out the bigger fighter.
Toward the end of his life, Sugar was asked what he thought of computerized fights that matched him against the likes of Muhammad Ali, Jack Johnson, Rocky Marciano, or any other fighter from boxing’s pantheon. He dismissed it as pure nonsense. And he probably would have felt the same about the recent rash of simulated fights on game platforms. As good as some of these games are, imaginary bouts wherein contestants control the movements of their favorite fighters are a poor approximation of ring reality.
Whether animated or simulated or real, there was only one Sugar Ray, only one fighter who many of the other greats claimed was “pound for pound” the best fighter ever. Even Muhammad Ali, who declared he was the “greatest,” was willing to concede that Sugar might have been even greater than he was.
There was no perfect fighter, no consummate master of the “sweet science,” but Sugar comes as close as any to that ideal. He possessed all the attributes of a great fighter: stamina, speed, resilience, balance, versatility, savvy, mathematical rhythm, and punching power—“poetry with a punch.” In a recent Ring collectors’ special of the one hundred greatest punchers of all time, Sugar was ranked eleventh, behind heavyweight Earnie Shavers and in front of Ruben Olivares. “He could hit you just as hard backing up as coming forward,” boxing historian Bert Sugar has often remarked.
Sugar’s left hook was perhaps his most lethal weapon. He could launch it from so many different geometric angles, with the authority to leave its recipient in every position but perpendicular; it could come at you like a bolo or from a wide, arcing angle, or from as close as a few inches away, with devastating power. Ask Gene Fullmer. It could come as a lead, a counterpunch, or it could dig into an opponent’s gut, following a jab or a right cross. When Sugar got you in trouble, he was a menacing, deadly finisher. If you had a weakness as a fighter, he would eventually find it and exploit it unmercifully. Ask Jimmy Doyle and Flash Sebastian. There were very few styles he didn’t figure out in his prime; sometimes it might take a couple of fights, but he was a shrewd craftsman with the moves of a chess master in the squared circle. Ask Randy Turpin and Carmen Basilio. And ask Joe Louis, who knew him longer and better than almost anyone else in the world, and who called him “the greatest fighter ever to step into the ring.”
Who the best fighter of all time was will be debated until the sport’s final bell, and even then there will be no consensus. There may have been fighters who were faster, stronger, smarter; who punched harder, were more resilient, and were perhaps even prettier. But none combined these attributes with such verve and flamboyance—and success—as Sugar Ray Robinson.
SUGAR’S RING RECORD
Amateur Fights—85 victories (69 KOs—49 in first round), 0 defeats
Professional Fights—175 victories (109 KOs), 19 defeats (1 KO), 6 draws, 1 no-decision, 1 no-contest
1940
Oct 4
Joe Echeverria
New York
KO 2
Oct 8
Silent Stafford
Savannah
KO 2
Oct 22
Mistos Grispos
New York
W 6
Nov 11
Bobby Wood
Philadelphia
KO 1
Dec 9
Norment Quarles
Philadelphia
KO 4
Dec 12
Oliver White
New York
KO 3
* * *
1941
Jan 4
Harry LaBarba
Brooklyn
KO 1
Jan 13
Frankie Wallace
Philadelphia
KO 1
Jan 31
/> George Zengaras
New York
W 6
Feb 8
Benny Cartegena
Brooklyn
KO 1
Feb 21
Bobby McIntire
New York
W 6
Feb 27
Gene Spencer
Detroit
KO 5
Mar 3
Jimmy Tygh
Philadelphia
KO 8
Apr 14
Jimmy Tygh
Philadelphia
KO 1
Apr 24
Charley Burns
Atlantic City
KO 1
Apr 30
Joe Ghnouly
Washington, DC
KO 3
May 10
Vic Troise
Brooklyn
KO 1
May 19
Nick Castiglione
Philadelphia
KO 1
Jun 16
Mike Evans
Philadelphia
KO 2
Jul 2
Pete Lello
New York
KO 4
Jul 21
Sammy Angott
Philadelphia
W 10
Aug 27
Carl Red Guggino
Long Island City, NY
KO 3
Aug 29
Maurice Arnault
Atlantic City