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EPISODE: Episode 22
Neil discusses many of his heroes – boxers, trainers and coaches – from the ring on TalkinFight Monday to Friday – YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live Weekday’s at 7pm EST (6:30 on Fridays)
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Transcribed:
Gotcha good evening talk and fight fans welcome once again to another exciting episode of neil the deal with neil the deal himself and tonight he’s got a special episode lined up because he’s going to be talking about sugar ray robinson, one of the greatest of all time.
Hey how you doing graham nice to see you again as usual, how’s everything today.
I hope it’s going well.
It is thank you excellent excellent.
I hope everything’s going well with all you talking fight fans, neil the deal fans guys.
I hope you had a good day.
I had a great day, as graham said, we’re going to talk about a guy uh.
That disputably is the greatest boxer of all time.
Now i was holding back on this guy, but since we uh did monzone yesterday, i felt it was in order to uh go to the guy.
That actually is considered, basically the only guy that was better than monzone, and that was sugar, ray robinson sugar, ray robinson guys.
So that’s who we’re going to talk about tonight.
It might be a little bit of a lengthy one.
Graham, i don’t know what we’re going to how you guys want to approach it, because this guy had a very big career, long time, a lot of stuff about him.
So, let’s just get into it a bit.
I want to thank you first guys out there and neil the deal talking fight land thanks for the likes thanks for liking.
Sharing with your friends, i appreciate that immensely.
The comments have been really great.
You guys have been answering a lot of the questions and the trivia questions, which is fantastic and uh.
Obviously the subscriptions are coming in.
You guys are letting some of your friends know who we are, what we’re doing here talk and fight, and we got a whole bunch of professional people hosting these shows so feel free to check out the other shows bola the scoop, the female fist, with scarlet and Of course knuckle up with mikey, so let’s uh, let’s all, have fun together, guys be safe out there.
I know it’s getting colder.
So, let’s talk about uh bundle up and stay warm.
Let’S talk about our man here, apparently he’s the world’s greatest fighter.
Graham, i’ve done all the research, as you know everywhere i go.
Everybody has said that he is actually the world’s greatest boxer in the history of boxing, so i mean i’ve always heard about him.
I knew he was amazing.
I just didn’t know that he was actually considered that high up in in basically everybody’s everybody’s categories, like from box rack to ring magazine to boxing news magazines to old school stuff that they used to do uh.
All these announcers, bert sugar used to talk about him.
A lot and uh he’s just amazing, so give me a sec here, i’m going to do something down here, i’m going to turn that off there we go all right.
So we’re talking about uh sugar, ray robinson.
Well guys here we go.
This is an amazing story.
So check it out, he was born walker smith, jr walker, smith, jr was was his name.
He was not born sugar ray robinson.
He was born, may 3rd 1921 in ailey, georgia, ailey georgia.
He died april, 12, 1989 in los angeles, california.
He had a career that spanned uh 25 years 1940 to 1965.
.
He was inducted into the international boxing hall of fame in 1990 and was regarded at that time and still is the best boxer ever so guys.
If we’re talking about boxing, i would think that this is the kind of guy he’d want to go and check out.
Considering he’s been labeled the best boxer in the history of boxing, so i don’t know what to tell you.
If you don’t go watch this guy, you might, as i don’t know, get another hobby.
I don’t know do something else, so he he fought in quite a number of divisions uh.
He fought in four divisions, actually five.
Now that i think of it.
It was a featherweight lightweight, welterweight, middleweight and light heavyweight all the way up through his career, so he went from featherweight to light heavyweight, which is a big big, big jump in in weight class.
Now he had an amateur career uh.
He was an amazing amateur gram.
Check this out, so he had a total of it’s unknown, exactly apparently how many amateur fights he had again because a lot of them were not recorded.
So apparently it’s.
The number is more than this, but this is the known number.
The known number is total fights.
Uh 85 all right and he had zero, get that zero losses.
He was 85 and oh, oh as an amateur 85-0.
Okay, oh and he had 69 knockouts out of those 85 fights so you’re.
Looking at you know an 80 knockout ratio or something crazy in that and around there.
What would that be? Graham, what would that be? 69 knockouts in 85? Fights that’s 70.
85.
That’S like 85 percent or something is it not yeah 70 out of 85 percent yeah 70 out of 85, basically, basically, so that’s five, five, so yeah so yeah! That’S that’s way up there that knockout percentage – and this is when he’s an amateur.
So then he moves on.
He get.
He wins.
The new york golden gloves title featherweight: gold medal; 1939: that’s the new york golden gloves and he does it again: new york golden gloves in 1940, under the lightweight division, he moved up one division the next year and he won the gold medal.
So he’s the best of the best right there 39-40 as an amateur.
He also won the inner city golden gloves championship in 39.
Uh in chicago was a gold medal again in the featherweight division, and then he fought the inner inner city golden uh, gloves again in new york in 1940 and again he was a gold medal winner and he moved up into the lightweight category.
So in 39 he was a featherweight and 40.
.
He was a lightweight and he took all the medals, graham everyone he was in so like you know what i mean.
That was that’s pretty, that’s pretty crazy.
So in his early days uh he was one of uh.
The youngest of three kids, whose father was a cotton, uh, uh, peanut and corn farmer in georgia, and then he didn’t really like that life for his family.
So they decided to move to detroit where he got into construction, his father and uh.
He was a construction worker, eventually his parents separated and his mother took him to new york city harlem.
So i don’t is that you move from detroit to harlem.
Is that, like i don’t know, if that’s a step up or what i don’t know, i’ve never been to either place.
So i don’t know that all i can speculate what that was all about at 12 years old, moving to harlem okay, all right 11.
11.
Turning 12.
, so he uh, he apparently lived on the same uh street as uh joe lewis, and joe lewis was one of his idols with this other individual henry armstrong, who at the time was a title holder um when, when when sugar ray was, was a child, You know what i mean, so he looked up to lewis and armstrong apparently, and he decided he was gon na.
He wanted to start fighting, he was 15 years old, and so he applied to get into this fighting tournament uh in the neighborhood.
I guess in there.
Whatever it’s, it’s the, i think it’s called the aau or something like that.
So you need you need to.
You need to get a license or a membership.
I think it was a membership in those days to the aau or aau um and uh auuu.
That’S what it would be: au and uh.
He was too young.
He needed to be 18 years old to get a membership into the club to be able to box so uh, mr uh walker uh.
Yes, you know at that time.
He’S he’s still he’s still rolling under the name: walker smith jr.
So mr walker decides uh.
He’S gon na talk to a body of his and he’s going to get use his id to get the membership.
So he borrows his buddy’s id and what’s the name is but his buddy’s name is ray robinson, so he used his id to start his fighting career.
Therefore he decided to keep the name ray robinson for the rest of his career.
Isn’T that a cool uh way of kind of changing your name and becoming somebody else? I guess i don’t know right whatever it takes right, so he he.
Basically he did that um.
He turned pro in 1940 at 19 years old and by 1957 had a pro record, graham uh, sorry, 1951.
, so he’s turned pro in 40, 11 years.
His record at that point was 128, 1 and 2.
.
That’S his pro record! So now we’re going to go to his pro record totals okay.
Now this is really going to blow your mind.
I’M like i really had no clue guys, guys sugar ray robinson.
I had no clue and it says neil the deal i knew he was big, but not this big.
That is over the top, so anyways check out his pro fights, graham guess how many he had.
What did you just say? Well, he had 128 in 1951.
.
He had more well, he fought till 1965.
I i guess so all right, let’s just double it.
240.
, damn close! Graham, that’s a good guess.
He actually had 200 fights 200.
like we’re, always talking about the magical 50.
yeah yeah, this guy had 200.
guys.
That’S 200.
200 200 like who has 200 fights – i don’t even know if there is other than that teo fellow stevenson, that cuban amateur yeah like 234 fights or something right, graham but other than him.
I i don’t.
I haven’t seen anybody with 200 plus fights under their belt.
Really, if you guys know of any, please comment on that, let us know maybe we’ll talk about those guys or that guy or whoever that is so anyways.
He was 200 fights, total ram, 173 wins with 109 knockouts 19 losses.
Six draws and one no contest when he actually the no contest check this out.
He was fighting in europe at the end of his career and apparently, kidney punches in europe at the time were illegal, but he didn’t know that so he nailed the guy so hard.
In his kidney, the guy fell to the ground.
Crumpled out called couldn’t move, but he lost the fight because illegal punch, but he didn’t know that he wasn’t allowed to punch there.
Like nobody told him, he can’t punch the kidneys in england.
I don’t know what kind of a rules is that that’s that’s english, for you, though, you know what i mean they make up their own rules as they go.
That’S how they do it.
That’S that’s how they do it.
They don’t tell us nothing.
They just put and do everything anything they want so anyways.
This guy was crazy, so there we go graham, like 109 knockouts in 200 fights.
So that’s probably a 62 knockout.
You know ratio something like that.
50.
Sorry, 52.
.
So, from 1943 to 57 he went on graham check this out.
He went on to a 91 fight unbeaten streak.
He won 91 fights straight.
What wow i when i read that i’m like whoa, 91 fights straight he it’s the third longest in boxing history.
So apparently, there’s two guys out there we got ta find who have a longer winning streak than 91 straight.
I it doesn’t come to mind but anyways.
I have the welterweight world titles from 46 to 51 and the middleweight title he he got it the first time in 1951.
.
So we’re going to talk a little bit more about how that went, uh.
So in uh in 40 and 42 he defeated all comers.
Apparently, every fight um, all the ex champions future world champions in 40 to 42.
He didn’t lose a fight out of those 91.
in 43.
He uh he was inducted into the u.
s army.
Graham, i guess he was drafted, i’m assuming he was drafted and uh and then, when he was in the military, he was forced to use his his birth name of walker, uh walker, smith jr.
So he was not able to use the sugar ray robinson moniker when he was in the military.
So when he was in the military he actually was in the military.
With joe lewis, joe lewis was older than him by six years right, so they became friends.
They used to perform um boxing, um exhibitions and stuff for the for the for the military, but robinson was getting very disenchanted with the whole situation because they weren’t letting blacks watch the fights they were it was.
There was a lot of discrimination still going on in those days.
I guess and he was upset, so he caused a bit of a ruckus and they ended up giving him an honorable discharge.
I believe, after 15 months in 1944, so he did 15 months service and then they he just wasn’t.
He didn’t like what they were doing in the military at that time to the blacks, i guess is basically what it was so he’s definitely been known as like one of the first very first uh black sports athletes.
That really came out advocately.
Like frank, rob like frank, robinson or the different, you know the the first ones that came out in the in the sports to kind of, say, enough’s enough right type of thing.
So in 46 he had a 73 1-1 record and then i told you by 51.
It was like 128 right, but he was finally given 128 1-1.
You know what i mean.
Graham he just kept going.
He was winning fight every fight, he was winning.
I mean he only lost one fight, basically in the first 250 or something so he was.
Finally, given the chance to win the title, the world title uh, it was uh – was a close 15-round decision, but he won over a guy named tommy bell 1946.
in 1950, the bout against a guy named charlie, fusari um.
He he he was so gracious.
He was.
He was apparently he was a real humanitarian gram like we’re going to go on.
This might be a two-parter i would think, but uh of that fight in 1950.
He donated the entire purse that he made that night to uh cancer research.
He kept one dollar for himself for that specific fight.
He he did this kind of stuff all the time, graham um.
He was a very interesting individual, you know and he he had his own way of doing things right.
So he was also he he.
He basically fought this guy named george costner.
All right and george costner was running around around 1951 52 calling himself sugar all right.
So he kept saying to all the media in those days that i’m the real sugar i’m gon na show that robinson who the real sugar guy is blah blah blah and uh when they get when they got into the ring, basically robinson said to him: uh your Name: ain’t, sugar, it’s mine and basically decimated the guy in two minutes and 49 seconds of the first round.
So we they’ve cosner, found out real quick who the real sugar was right, like real, quick and so he got bigger freaking down in huge and 47.
He had a bit of a blip and his that kind of was kind of rough for him.
In 47 he was scheduled to fight a guy named jimmy doyle, but uh robinson didn’t want.
He wanted to fight him, but he didn’t want to fight him because he had a dream for him and in his dream he dreamt that he killed jimmy doyle in a boxing match.
So he didn’t want to fight him, but the promoters were pushing it and pushing it and pushing it.
He went to see priests, he went to see uh church people uh, like you, know, ministers type of thing and they blessed him before the fight.
So he went in, he had to fight and uh.
He dominated the fight.
He ko’d eko doyle in the eighth round knocked him unconscious and uh doyle died that evening wow.
So i was like whoa, so he his dream came true.
He predicted his the guy’s fate in his dream, and then it happened so that kind of put a bit of a he was a little bit taken back by that.
He said in his autobiography that that kind of messed him up for a little bit.
So i think he took a little bit of time off.
He might have retired for a couple of years like two and a half years or something, but then he uh, then he came back.
He also, apparently, because the guy died and the guy had said that if the purse that he was um getting for the robinson fight, he was going to buy his mother, a house graham, but because he died robinson for the next four fights donated all the money.
To his next four fights to doyle’s mother, so she could still buy the house in his name.
So that’s pretty uh upstanding.
That is humanitarian right there.
You know that’s the kind of guy you want to be right, so i don’t know what to tell you.
That’S that’s pretty that’s pretty solid of a of a thing to do so in his memory he gave the money to the mother and she bought the house that the son wanted her to always have so there you go in 1950.
He went into the middleweight division in 51.
He was named fighter of the year for the second time and then things started going a little down for him.
He had a bunch of fights.
He was fighting a lot of 10 rounders instead of 15 rounders between uh, say 52 and 57.
Right 57, though he 56 yeah.
He had a.
He had an epic battle against this individual we’re going to talk about him in the notable fights section at the end guys, so he was fighting this guy named carmen bastille.
Now, if you guys want to look up to that.
Yes, i know and uh and yes, he was fighting carmen bastille and basically these are epic epic battles.
Graham, there was two of them and i remember seeing one on a boxing night classics or boxing classics at night um i used to watch it all the time it was on.
Espn and they’d.
Have the old fights on i’d watch them late at night and i’d tape them on the old vcr get the pcr set up? You know what i mean: ooh, that was high tech, the vcr that was oh and the walkman for the music wow.
That was another one that was just booming, so in 57 and 58, both those bastille fights graham were were deemed fight of the year, both of them.
So you need to watch those ones guys.
Those two are fights of the year in the in those.
In that era that year, so there you go um in 1965, he embarked on a european tour.
That’S where i was telling you got that uh.
He had that.
I guess it was a no decision because he punched a guy in a kidney where in england, you’re not allowed to punch him in the kidney, but he went on some european tour and then he came back in november 65.
It was his last fight.
He lost unanimous decision to a guy named joey archer, and that was his uh.
That was basically his career in 19.
He did have another.
He had some epic battles in 1957 he lost the title to a guy named gene fulmer.
So if you guys want to look up sugar, ray robinson against gene fulmer, he fought him four times, graham and then he fought he fought jake lamotta.
I believe it’s five times the guy who uh robert de niro played in the movie raging.
Bull, that’s jake, lamotta.
So that those fights are based on his battles with sugar, ray robinson right, more or less that’s what the movie’s about right.
So he did all that um in his retirement, like i said he was really classy guy.
Graham, he made four million dollars in his career.
In those days, four million dollars was a lot of money um in the 50s right and the 60s, as we all know um.
So he was, he had a very classy and flamboyant lifestyle.
He had a pink cadillac um.
He also, which was very interesting, and this isn’t going out to everybody out there in uh talk and fight neil the deal and guys.
I never knew this where this came from, but now i i figured it out – he’s the first individual in the entire world to use the word entourage.
So all you little rappers out there little wayne and little drake and all your little guys and justin bieber’s and all the rest of you with your entourage.
You can thank sugar, ray robinson because that’s and you know how he got it.
He got off a plane in france, graham and some waitress on the plane.
As all his friends came down, you know, he’d have to barber with him.
He’D have the guy shaving.
Had the hair stylist with him.
He’D have his buddies with him.
He’D have his chicks with him.
He’S like this guy he’s just cruising with his aunt.
The french chick goes oh monsieur, and he goes ah.
I like that word now.
I’M gon na call all my friends the entourage, that’s how it happened.
So there you go a little bit of history.
Uh word history there for you guys in the middle of this he also uh.
He he really struggled financially, graham in 89, he um.
When he passed away.
He was basically dead, poor, literally and uh they in night.
In 2006 the u.
s postal service decided they would make a commemorative stamp over him and uh.
In 1965 he basically was broke and he told everybody – you know family friends and media and whoever that he had spent four million dollars that he had uh that he had made in his career and he was literally broke the day he retired.
So there you go so notable fights, we got uh jake lamotta check them out.
We got carmen bastille check those two out.
Jake lamont is five times so check that out uh gene fulmer four times and uh.
This is another rocky.
I don’t know.
If you guys know about him we’ll talk about him, rocky graziano he’s another rocky.
So we’ll talk about him.
Now he did get a whack of awards a lack of awards.
He got the hall of fame award.
He was the first in history to win divisional world titles five times, burt sugarman ranked him uh greatest greatest greatest of all time.
Fighter of all time, 2002 ring magazine had him number one out of 80 in the last 80 years, uh box wreck ranked sugar ray.
Fourth, best pound for pound puncher of all time, bucks right up.
They also gave sugar rate 31 of his 31 of his uh 59 or 69 ko’s a five-star rating.
I noticed that so he won in super flashy fashion.
You know what i mean, graham, he was just blazing amazing.
He had everything that guy had everything going every.
I won’t.
Even let you say it because you guys got to check it out.
Speed, punching power, foot feed ring rate everything he had everything he he could.
He could knock you out going backwards.
Put it that way, that’s what he could do, knock you out going backwards so anyways.
He died of alzheimer’s at 67 years old, which is a real shame, very young age um and he was uh.
We were just saying to myself: i was thinking wow, he was a freemason all right.
He was a freemason and uh.
I also understand that jack dempsey was a freemason and quite a number of other athletes and stuff.
So that’s interesting stuff for us.
He uh in 1999 he was named welterweight and middleweight uh of the century by the associated press of the century, best middleweight best welterweight 2007, ranked top boxer of all time by espn 2003 ring ranked on 11 on the list of all-time greatest punchers box rec research Organization, the international box research organization, ranked him number one welterweight pound for pound all time.
He was inducted into the madison square, gardens walk of fame 1992 and he was inspired robinson inspired kinds of fighters to use that moniker sugar.
So we got inspired them all.
So we got sugar ray leonard, my favorite.
We got uh sugar, shane mosley, he love, i love mosley, and we also remember if you remember, uh, rashad evans used to call himself the mma fighters called suga suga.
So that’s all in homage to uh sugar, ray robinson guys, so that’s a big one tonight i want to thank you for coming out, graham for having me out guys like share.
Do all the great stuff subscribe comment talk about the world’s number one ever all-time: heavy uh middleweight, basically, middleweight lightweight welterweight every division in there, almost sugar ray robinson thanks for coming out guys, we’ll see you tomorrow night at 7.
, have a safe and nice evening.
Take care of yourselves thanks! Neil well done good night!
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