A deeper dive on Sugar Ray Robinson's greatness.

Sugar Ray Robinson is widely considered the greatest Boxer who ever lived, Pound for Pound. Some people, myself included, may consider someone like Greb or Langford as superior. But that really does not take away from Robinson's greatness. I decided to educate myself and find out just how great his career was in heavy detail. Much has been said about the fights with LaMotta, Gavilan, Turpin etc. And while those will obviously be mentioned here, I think there is merit in knowning about some of his less known opponents. So, here is what I found, and just as a heads up, it's really long.

Most people resonate Robinson's greatness with his Welterweight and Middleweight achievements, and while that certainly is true, he had shown his ability even before that. Not even a full year after his pro debut, he defeated the # 3 rated Lightweight in the world, Pete Lello, in just 4 rounds. Lello, while certainly not a world beater, had previously beaten Lew Jenkins and even drew with Sammy Angott. Speaking of ''The Clutch'', Robinson also defeated Angott ,who was the #1 rated Lightweight in the world and owner of the NBA title. Shortly after, he defeated future Lightweight contender, Maxie Shapiro. After that, he proceeded to move up to the division he is most revered in, Welterweight.

Right off the bat, he came out swinging against Marty Servo, who would later proceed to win the World title from the then Champion, Freddie Cochrane, whose title was frozen due to WW2. Immediately after, he twice defeated the all time great Fritzie Zivic in back to back wins, the man who at one point or another defeated a murderer's row of opponents, consisting of Henry Armstrong, Jake Lamotta, Charley Burley, Eddie Booker and Sammy Angott.

Shortly after, he dismanted a former Lightweight and Welterweight contender, Maxie Berger, in 2 short rounds, as well as the #10 rated Welterweight Norman Rubio, before rematching and yet again beating Servo and Angott. He destroyed #9 rated Tony Motisi in 1 round, before first fighting his most well known nemesis, Jake LaMotta, a man who by the end of his career, had ended up beating Fritzie Zivic three times, Bert Lytell, Marcel Cerdan, Holman Williams, Tommy Bell, George Costner, Bob Satterfield, Robert Villemain and Robinson himself. He then beat the #8 rated Izzy Jannazzo twice, who had already beaten Holman Williams and Cocoa Kid. His undefeated record and winning streak then came to an end at the hands of LaMotta, but for obvious reasons, there's no shame in that.

He came back by beating #3 rated Welterweight California Jackie Wilson and then LaMotta again, only a week later. A bit later, he beat Ralph Zenneli, who would proceed to become the # 5 rated Welter by beating Jannazzo and Zivic right after this loss. Right after, he beat a declining, but still very good version of the great Henry Armstrong, who had just recently beaten Willie Joyce and Sammy Angott, but couldn't win a single moment against Robinson. Robinson also beat Jannazzo in 2 rounds right after, as well as the #10 rated Middleweight Vic Dellicurti, who had also previously lost to Ray when he was unranked. A few months later he beat Tommy Bell, who was on a solid winning streak and had already beaten notable names like Fritzie Zivic, Maxie Berger, then current contender Bee Bee Wright and future contender Chuck Hunter.

After that, he would proceed to dismantle eventual top contender George Costner in 1 round. LaMotta proceeded to be much luckier, but not lucky enough to get the decision. This time however it was Robinson's time to get unlucky, as he got a draw against the # 4 rated Middleweight Jose Basora, but there's no shame in drawing against a much bigger contender once in a while. He then proceeded to basically end the career of the # 4 rated Welterweight, Jimmy McDaniels in 2 rounds. As always, LaMotta would provide a tougher test than the rest of his opponents, but would not get the win. Dellicurti, Angott, Jannazzo and Rubio would also rematch him and share similar fates as they did before against him.

Artie Levine almost knocked him out, but due to the refeere's controversial counting, he fell victim to Robinson's offensive ability and got knocked out instead. And finally, after so long, he would finally gain the Championship crown against the other highest rated fighter in the division, Tommy Bell. And thus, king Sugar Ray Robinson's reign of terror had begun.

#5 rated Middleweight Georgie Abrams would proceed to put on a great effort against Robinson, but would come up short. # 7 rated Welterweight Jimmy Doyle would tragically die of injuries against him. # 8 rated Weltereight California Jackie Wilson did worse than in their initial bout and got stopped in 7. # 3 rated Welterweight Bernard Docusen barely managed to win a round. After that, Robinson beat the # 1 rated Welterweight, the P4P all time great Kid Gavilan. #5 rated Middleweight Steve Balloise also couldn't go further than 7. Henry Brimm was very lucky to get a draw with him, given how Robinson had a win against Young Gene Buffalo just 5 days prior and was more than likely exhausted. Robinson also beat Gavilan again a few months later, as well as Murderer's row member Little Tiger Aaron Wade at the tail end of his career. Poor # 2 rated Welter George Costner would again not survive more than a round against him, since he provoked Robinson.

It had started to become apparent that the Welterweights weren't enough for Robinson, he had cemented himself as the division's all time greatest. Now, it was time for the Middleweights to try their luck against him. Previous Middleweight victims Jake LaMotta, Vic Dellicurti, Steve Balloise and Georgie Abrams had proven that Robinson was more than capable of joining their ranks. And Robinson also probably wanted revenge against Basora for their draw.

# 3 rated Middleweight Robert Villemainn was clearly outclassed. Robinson decided to go back to Welterweight for a fight against #3 rated Welterweight Charley Fusari, who got outclassed even more soundly. Jose Basora, the former top Middleweight contender who had previously drawn with Ray, visited the canvas 4 times before being counted out in 1. Future Middleweight Champion Bobo Olson got knocked out in 12. Villemain got stopped in the 9th in their rematch. And then it happened, the St Valentine's Massacre, when Ray Robinson became Middleweight king by putting out arguably the greatest performance ever captured on film against the helpless LaMotta. Robinson was 122-1-2. The blemishes were against fighters he had beaten at one point or another.

After a fight tour in Europe, he decided to fight his #1 Contender, Randy Turpin. And as we all know, he lost in one of the bigger upsets of the sport's history, before reclaiming the title shortly after. He then beat the fantastic Bobo Olson again, and then the former Middleweight Champ, Rocky Graziano in 3 rounds. After that, he infamously failed to beat the Light Heavyweight champ Joey Maxim due to a heat stroke, despite clearly winning the fight, and retired from fighting.

Then you know how it goes. He came back and beat # 2 rated Middleweight Rocky Castellani and got the title back from the fantastic Bobo Olson, whom he beat twice back to back. He lost and regained the title to Gene Fullmer with the best left hook ever, and he lost to and beat Carmen Basilio. Then he lost to fighters he would have obliterated in his prime. But he still managed to beat the # 9 rated Middleweight Denny Moyer and put on a good effort against Joey Giardello.

This type of research really just goes to show that the argument of '' They had so many fights but they were against bums'' against older fighter is mostly BS. Sure, Robinson did have fights against guys that didn't even deserve to be in the Ring with him. But there are so many noteworthy opponents that get neglected because of the greats like Gavilan, LaMotta etc. Pretty sure I counted more than 50 wins against top 10 rated fighters on this post alone. And there's a chance I missed some opponents that aren't even mentioned here.