Charley Burley on Sugar Ray Robinson

Ray fought a lot of tough guys and there was a lot of tough ethnic groups at the time including blacks...Levine,Lamotta,Zivic,Turpin,Armstrong,Bell,Graziano,.....I think he would have beaten Burley

 

Still had to pay the ref of to beat Turpin in the rematch. SRR was in way more trouble and not stopped than Randy was when the ref stepped in. In fact Turpin had a shell defence much like PBF, imagine if PBF got stopped everytime he was on the ropes blocking.

 

I certainly agree with that! Some of these 147lbers you mentioned above like california jackie wilson, gavilan were prime top black welterweights. you can add tommy bell to that list too. I have lots of articles of tommy bell in my IBRO journal, he is understudied. The man is a good fighter

 

This fight is on youtube. Watch it. Turpin was certainly helpless when the referee stopped the fight.

It is a fair criticism of Robinson that he did not fight the rubber match with Turpin for which he likely would have recieved a record purse. There was talk that the third fight might have been the first million dollar gate below heavyweight.

 

watch some of Turpins other fights, he quite often did that on the ropes to lull his opponent into a false sense of security, He did it in the first fight too. Its called 'playing possom'

 

He "played possum' too well. He let Robinson hit him with dozens of punches with no reply. Any ref is going to stop a fight like that. Actually, Turpin is not playing possum. He was knocked down and was in deep trouble. At least, that is how I see the film.

 

ref didnt stop it when Turpin landed "dozens" of punches on Sugar RAy with no replay and bust his eye wide open.

 

Which round does Turpin land dozens of punches without reply? Have you seen the film?

 

Come on, playing possom? The man's head was being jolted around at the end almost as bad as when Corrales stopped Castillo

 

Robinson had that great quality of timing a guy playing possum or being cute,especially near the ropes.....Joe Louis had it, he did it vs Walcott in there 2nd fight, hurt him with a shot while JJ was being slick, Robinson did it vs Turpin...I think that finally was pretty clear that SSR figured out the Turpin puzzle

 

Agree wholeheartedly and you make some insightful & seldom discussed points. Like having the tools to deal with a guy being cute in there and finally solving a difficult opponent and dominating thereafter. Man, you just don't see those skills displayed in recent times where it seems like everyone has to be in the driver seat completely to win.

Oh yeah---one of the best boxing specials has to be 64 day hero about Randy Turpin. And being asked to defend your title that quick against a great fighter like Robinson--in his backyard--would not be a winnable fight for very many other middleweight champs either.