How much credit to you give Maxim for his win over Robinson?

Maxim said he thought Robinson was trying to draw him in by a 'dead man act' when Sugar Ray was flopping all around the place by the 13th round. The win came to him by a complete surprise. That just shows you how cautious a man he was in the ring, he didn't take any unnecessary chances.

 

He wore SRR down and won, SRR was ahead but finished last...I know there was a lot of heat in the ring but like Maxim said" Do you think my corner was air-conditioned"

Credit Due to Maxim...he was the obstacle SRR could not overcome.

 

It's a sort of catch 22- if Ray fights a fight more conducive to managing stamina to be ready for all 15 like Maxim did, he doesn't look as good the first 10- but he still could've won the rounds. Selling out was a gamble on Robinson's part that didn't pay off.

Ray pulled a Jermain Taylor- he sold out to look great early, shot his wad, and it came back to bite him in the ass. It was a dumb strategy to use on a light hitter with an iron chin and excellent conditioning like Maxim. Joey gets full credit for fighting the smarter fight and executing it well enough to win.

 

It is true that Robinson had to do more, but I have to point out that smaller men have a considerable advantage in endurance sports, if the temperatures are high.

I don't thinkl that this should be dismissed in the equation.

"Was my coprner air conditioned?"

Joey Maxim

 

In the big picture, yes Maxim fought the smarter fight...and just to throw an unrelated aside in, I think maxim would have beaten LaMotta if Jake had challenged him for the crown.

 

I just watched the last rounds from round 10. I have to ask, which of the three rounds that Joey won were in rounds 10, 11, 12 and 13? Because there is no way that any of those 4 rounds could be scored more than a draw for Ray Robinson. I cant recall with certainty the earlier rounds, but it is clear that in those last 4 rounds, Joey won the fight because he had a proper high guard and Ray simply had great difficulties landing. He landed an occasional flurry but missed too many more so wildly.

And Ray's defence relied almost entirely on running out of range and clinching when in close. His guard was very low and this certainly helped. It is obvious that Ray was tired as early as the 10th round, yet he didnt adapt his style and try to stop moving. I know he was the smaller fighter, but he also seemed to be the faster and harder hitting fighter. He should have fought more conventionally (with a high guard) in those later rounds.

I disagree that Joey was outboxed (certainly in these last rounds) by Ray.

 

In the old days, the Old Larry Foley style of fighting was all about learning how to take a punch. Obviously the key being that you need to be moving away from the punch to lessen the impact (and obviously we are talking about rolling here). If you listen to Jake la Motta, he swears that his chin wasnt that great, but he knew how to roll with the punches. All other rock jawed fighters say the same thing. Muhammed Ali, who most think was the greatest ever, used to spend hours in the gym letting guys wail away on him. We mostly think this was silly because you cant condition a chin, but the fact is that he was learning and practicing how to lessen the blows. I often wonder whether this critical area of training is one which many modern fighters sadly neglect in favour of increasing there strength (something which is of little consequence if the fighter cannot land the blow cleanly).

 

Something that ought to acknowledged is the factor of hydration and making weight. Joey had to get in under 175, and made it with two pounds to spare. This is somebody who came in at 190 for a pair of bouts a decade earlier. Don't you suppose Maxim could have been dangerously fluid deprived in order to get under the limit in that sweltering climate? Willard and Johnson could do it in Havana, being heavyweights. Ditto for the principles involved in Jeffries-Sharkey II (where Sailor Tom didn't have an air conditioner, but did have a fan in his corner).

There's no excuse for Robby not to have been fully hydrated. Armstrong was always well hydrated on gallons of beer when competing in WW Title competition. Ray did not need to exert himself as much as he did in order to win. Maxim was smarter, and his oxymoronic conservative gamble paid off. SRR should have been too smart a veteran to screw up like that.

 

Actually I've seen him boast several times that he did not feel pain, but he does tend to say that his defense is underrated, which it is (for a pressure fighter).

I tend to agree with this article:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?i...AIBAJ&dq=maxim robinson power&pg=2249,4601848

 

It says in that article that some people had the fight 13-0 to Robinson. That is quite possibly the most ridiculous score card i have ever heard of. There is no way that Maxim lost round 13. And rounds 10-12 were at worst very close rounds and at best Maxim rounds.

i think i proably need to watch the earlier rounds again though, before i pass judgement. What seems to be forgotten in this argument of Ray supposedly handing out this great domination, is that Joey wasnt in any trouble whatsoever (certainly from those last few rounds). Does this suggest that Robinson couldnt crack an egg at this weight?

 

It's just that Robinson was scoring the cleaner shots in each round, while Maxim's only landed blows were out of the clinches. You can say he was winning the war but he sure wasn't winning the rounds. Maxim got hit with some good shots and he always took a very good punch, but was mostly able to avoid the combinations of Robinson.

Maxim's corner did give him smelling salts to help him recover after being stunned by a left hook in the 7th round.

 

They don't hand out the 100 meter gold medal to the guy who was leading at 80 meters.

 

Sure but you can't win every fight out of a hundred. Maxim won against Robinson, and was bounced like a basketball by Bobo Olson in turn. It happens.

 

There were two guys fighting in the ring, plus an official when bell rang to begin the fight. By the time the bell rang to end the thirteenth, only one of those guys (Maxim) was in any condition to continue doing his job. For that alone he deserves credit.

 

I just watched 2 or 3 of the earlier rounds (think it included) the 7th. One thing which i think really costed Robinson the fight was that he barely threw the right hand at all. He looked awesome with his left lead and left hook. But rarely followed threw with the right. I am not sure why this was.

And while i think that you are right about Maxim landing mostly in the clinches, but this was because Ray was fighting at such a distance. Adn it is some of those damaging blows in the clinches that really started to wear down Ray. The ref did seem to allow quite a bit in their. I wonder whether it could be argued that the heat on the ref had a big bearing on the outcome of the fight?