The Second God Of War: Sugar Ray Robinson

A junk wagon pulled by a clopping nag lurches down 110th street in New York City. Beside it walks a peddler whistling a Cab Calloway tune, his eyes jaundice yellow. In the distance a bouncing figure approaches out of Central Park. It is a young man about seventeen, boxing shadows in steady stride. He stalls and skips in place, shoulders hunched, chin down, and lets fly a shoe shine combination that ends with lightning left hooks. Spinning off the last of them he runs on into Harlem, into the morning sun.

In the afternoon, he heads over to Grupp’s gym on 116th street. Old-time fighters loiter there, bound together by an uncommon past –“All they did was talk boxing,” he would remember, “and all I did was listen.” Harry Wills would teach him balance, Soldier Jones the difference a good jab can make. Among them is William Ward, who fought under a name dreaded in the 1920s –Kid Norfolk. Ward regales him with war stories about the blood-spattered men of a bygone era.

The phenomenon that would become Sugar Ray Robinson began at the feet of masters, and was forged from the inside out. The future was his.

YEAR ONE~
He still had jumpy legs after his professional debut on the undercard of the Henry Armstrong-Fritzie Zivic title fight at Madison Square Garden. Showering quickly, he hurried upstairs from the dressing room to see his idol make the twentieth defense of the world welterweight title. What he saw he never forgot. Armstrong, the Triple Champion the press was calling invincible, was bludgeoned, jabbed blind, and cracked with short shots until he had nothing left but courage. Zivic was ruthless. “I pulled my trunks up and went to work on him,” he recounted, “I busted him up, cut him here and cut him there…when the eye was cut, I’d rub it with the laces to open it a little more.”

In the cab ride home to Harlem, the young lightweight had vengeance on his mind. “Mom,” he said “I want to fight Zivic. I’ll fix him for the way he beat Armstrong.” His mother was having none of it –“Junior, I don’t want you ever to fight Zivic.”

Four days later, Junior was in Georgia to add a second round technical knock out to his budding record, and after that he had matches in Philadelphia, Detroit, New Jersey, and Washington DC as often as three times a month. His opposition was unusually tough. His fifth opponent as a professional was Norment Quarles, a one-time protégé of Jack Dempsey. Quarles had faced several champions in 108 professional bouts –yet couldn’t finish half the eight scheduled rounds against this prodigy. Four days after that he was back at the Garden handing Oliver White his first stoppage loss in 50 fights.

It is said that in Philadelphia even the winos know how to hook off a jab. Robinson was already good enough to flatten Philly fighters like they were barley in a field or grapes in a press. Jimmy Tygh, an aggressive lightweight who had never been stopped in 60 bouts was stopped twice –once cleanly and once after falling down five times. Mike Evan’s career was in recovery when a left hook left him in a stupor in June 1941.

Robinson was back in Philadelphia in July to risk his 20-0 record against a seasoned veteran with 80 fights, the National Boxing Association world lightweight champion Sammy “The Clutch” Angott.

It should not have been so easy.

Robinson was expected to be overmatched in close against a man with the fighting style of a squid, but he soon found answers. In the second round he sprang back and threw a looping right hand that parked on Angott’s chin. Down he went. His eyelids fluttered for six seconds before he got to his knees and then his feet as the count reached nine. Robinson said that the only reason Angott woke up was because his head was near the time-keeper’s hammer as it pounded on the ring apron. Angott had some success with left hooks to the body, but the long range blasts were too much and he lost a wide decision.

Many were now convinced that the victor, who had just turned twenty, was already the best fighter in the world. And despite his being acknowledged as the next logical challenger for Lew Jenkins’ lightweight crown, it was Angott who got the title shot, and the title.

With an uneasy crown atop his head, “The Clutch” whipped two top contenders and then got whipped himself in another non-title bout against Robinson. Angott tried again a few years later, and got whipped again.

By September 1941, the boxer the scribes were calling Ray “Sugar” Robinson faced U.S. sailor Marty Servo, who was undefeated in 44 fights. Like Angott, Servo was the boss on the inside, but Robinson slid back and lit him up at range. To the delight of the Philadelphia crowd, Servo fought as if Robinson was an English king and he a cranky colonist. Like the Liberty Bell Servo’s head was rung (though unlike that national treasure, it never cracked) and his revolution was thwarted.

On Halloween night, speed and talent glided into the ring at Madison Square Garden to confront a diabolical 142 fight veteran. The chance to beat the conqueror of Henry Armstrong had arrived.

No pundit worth his weight in smelling salts would have confused Fritzie Zivic’s style with artistry, while Robinson’s fights were already being compared to recitals. Barney Nagler quipped that he “boxed as though he were playing the violin.”

If he had a violin, Zivic would have snatched it and broken it across his knees.

To boxing historians, the mere mention of Fritzie’s name conjures up a rag-bag of felonious tricks. “I’d give ‘em the head, choke ‘em, hit ‘em in the balls… I used to bang ‘em up pretty good,” Zivic proudly conceded, “You’re fighting, you’re not playing the piano you know.”

In the first round, he scraped the inside of his gloves so hard against Robinson’s face that the laces felt like “steel wool.” He also had a way of uncannily forcing his opponent to head butt himself by looping his lead hand around the back of the neck in a clinch and jamming his opponent’s head into the top of his own. Then he’d looked to the referee with an unconvincing plea in his eyes. Robinson couldn’t believe what was happening. At the end of the round, he flopped on the stool in his corner. George Gainford splashed him with a sponge and said “don’t let him get close –keep him away with the jab.” He did as he was told and things got easier. Fritzie was impressed: “Everything I done, he done better” –everything legal that is.

Not only did Robinson avenge his idol, he began to outshine him. Henry Armstrong was fading while Robinson’s learning curve became a straight line pointing to heaven. “Year One” saw 26 victories, including the defeat of a world lightweight champion, an undefeated future world welterweight champion, and a former world welterweight champion. Two of them were Hall of Famers in their prime. Robinson wasn’t yet near his, but he didn’t have to be.
…
By the close of the decade, he would ascend to the welterweight throne. Jimmy Doyle would die at his hands, and traumatized, he would never again ignore his instincts or listen to anyone who disagreed with him. To insiders and former friends he became a prima donna, out of reach and obsessed by self-interest. More than a few hated his guts, though none could deny the greatness of a fighter whose record soared to a breathtaking 128-1-2 with 84 knockouts.

Sugar Ray Robinson is usually remembered today for winning the world middleweight title five times, but that accomplishment isn’t half the story. What prevented him from taking Joey Maxim’s world light heavyweight title on a blistering summer day in 1952 was nothing human. With an insurmountable lead on the scorecards after thirteen rounds, he collapsed with heat stroke. “God wanted me to lose!” a delirious Robinson declared in the dressing room at Yankee Stadium, “God beat me!” The truth wasn’t far off.

Had circumstances –boxing politics and the weather, been different, might he have been the first and only fighter in history to win the lightweight, welterweight, middleweight, and light heavyweight world titles? The answer is clear enough to force a startling conclusion.

Despite all his accolades, the man born Walker Smith Jr. is even greater than we know.

~YEAR TWENTY-FIVE
“Whom Fortune wishes to destroy,” Publilius wrote, “she first makes mad.” At forty-four years old, Sugar Ray Robinson had his 200th professional bout. “I am telling you I am going to win the title again,” he insisted. He planned to do it the old-fashioned way, by challenging a top middleweight contender in fourth-ranked Joey Archer.

The books had Robinson a 2 to 1 underdog against Archer for the Pittsburgh bout. It was his fourteenth fight in 1965, four of which he had lost. Nat Fleischer said what is always said at the end of a boxer’s professional life: “His legs are gone.” Once rivaling fellow Harlemite “Bojangles” Robinson, those gams still looked good, even if they were about as light and lively as the winter blues. That aura of beautiful danger surrounded him as he ascended into the ring, conked and svelte like the days of old …but Robinson knew better.

Aging ex-champions always know, even when they lie to themselves, or go mad with delusions. Grandeur seems to dangle over their graying heads like a star on a string, but they can’t jump anymore to reach it, and their gloves, like arthritic hands, can no longer hold it. It all slips away; until the earth-bound god-in-denial is publically humiliated.

As the bell tolled the end of ten one-sided rounds in the Civic Arena, a battered Robinson embraced Joey Archer. Archer escorted him to his corner and he stood facing it with his head bowed. And then something happened. The fans at ringside who had been hollering “Joey! Don’t hit him!” over the last few rounds began standing up and drifting over to Sugar Ray’s corner. First a scattered few and then dozens of fans gathered beneath him, applauding with something that approached deep reverence. Robinson’s eyes met theirs and the ovation washed over him. His defeat was being sanctified.

Fickle Fortune had changed her mind… this fighter would not be condemned to humiliation, not now, not ever.

The next afternoon he was stretched across a bed at the Carlton House Hotel, his aching head propped up on a pillow. No man had ever stopped him. The time had come to stop himself. With reporters scribbling on notepads, he quietly concluded his career.

Harry Markson, the director of boxing at Madison Square Garden called him a few weeks later. “Ray,” he said, “it just doesn’t seem right that a man of your stature should be allowed to retire so quietly… we’d like to throw a farewell party for you that will pay you the tribute you deserve. What do you say?” It was dubbed “Farewell to Sugar Ray” and scheduled just before the main event on December 10th 1965 at 9:30pm.

“He’s the greatest fighter there ever was, and for me that’s saying something.” Muhammad Ali said that night, “When I was a little kid I’d watch Sugar Ray Robinson on the TV, and when I started fightin’ I copied his moves …and I still do. When I go into the ring now he’s on my mind.”

The crowd was on its feet as he made his way down the aisle. They were still cheering as he climbed into the same ring where he began his career twenty-five years earlier, where he avenged an idol and became a greater one.

Four former middleweight kings were announced and soon they stood in the corners surrounding their common opponent. Among them were Carmen Basilio, Gene Fullmer, Carl “Bobo” Olson, and Randy Turpin who flew in all the way from England. Barbara Long of the Village Voice mused that they “could have rushed him and got him good,” and “tough old Carmen looked like he was entertaining the thought.” They closed in on him slowly –or warily, and lifted him up. Sugar Ray’s smile reflected the lights; and he extended his open hands not unlike a messiah.

At the end, he stood illuminated in a single spotlight, his terrycloth robe dazzling white. All were moved. The African Americans scattered throughout the crowd were more than moved. For them it was a spiritual experience. The man had his faults, to be sure, but the image of this champion was a reflection of something larger than himself –the strength and passion and brilliance of his people. It still is. With tears streaming down his face, he began to speak, and then faltered. A young man in the crowd was heard to whisper “Talk to me, daddy.” An elderly man said, “Let us hear you son,” and wept openly. The boxer’s voice trembled as he spoke into the microphone: “I’ll miss the applause that makes a guy get up off that stool one more time.”

Ducking his head, Sugar Ray Robinson slipped through maroon ropes that served as boundaries for his kingdom. He stood on the apron staring at the top rope for a moment, then kissed it and descended from the ring.

The gods themselves throw incense.


***************
SUGAR RAY ROBINSON’S SCORECARD
-25 points-
Experience: 24

-15 points-
Ring Generalship: 15
Longevity: 15
Dominance: 14

-10 points-
Durability: 9
P/LO: 8
Intangibles: 8

TOTAL: 93


…..
The graphic enhancements are the work of Jason McMann of Plymouth, MA.

The author would like to acknowledge the work of sportswriters Milton Gross, Jack Hand, and Arthur Daley, as well as Sugar Ray by Sugar Ray Robinson and Dave Anderson, Peter Heller’s In This Corner, A.J. Liebling’s The Sweet Science, and Wil Haygood’s recent biography Sweet Thunder: The Life and Times of Sugar Ray Robinson. “The gods themselves…” is from Shakespeare’s King Lear.

Special thanks to Dr. John O’Neill and Joe Rein, eyewitnesses to the prime of a near-perfect fighter.

Springs Toledo can be contacted at scalinatella@hotmail.com.