"Rockin" Robbie Sims - Highlight Reel and Appreciation Thread

Just made a highlight reel for the first time in a while, thought it came out pretty well- Also thought that more should be said on here about Robbie. I checked a bit ago and there's barely any threads around talking about him, so I figured I'd change that.

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@SonnyListon> I'm back in the game again, lol.

 

I might end up resurrecting that old thread, too. Just depends on if I'm crazy enough to start on all those requests again.

 

Notable names that Sims fought:

James "Hard Rock" Green
Bobby "Chappie" Czyz
Murray Sutherland
Mike "Movin' On" Tinley x2
Iran "The Blade" Barkley
"Cobra" Doug DeWitt x2
"Manos de Piedra" Roberto Duran
Sumbu "Patrizio" Kalambay
"The Dark Destroyer" Nigel Benn
"The Pazmanian Devil" Vinny Pazienza

After 17 years of fighting as a pro, Robbie ended up with a record of 38 (26) - 10 (1) - 2, having fought for 2 world titles (WBA and WBO), and 3 continental/state titles (New England, IBF USBA) at middleweight.

There wasn't many interviews I could find with him, with the only ones I've found being from the Roberto Duran and Nigel Benn pre-fight shows respectively, and a 2016 interview from The Enterprise News- Where he recounts his fight and SD win over Duran.

Sims (then ranked the #5 Middleweight in the world by the WBA before fighting Roberto Duran) was dressed up in a cop uniform for the pre-fight with Duran, patting a nightstick in his hand before anxiously saying, "Gotta take it for you Duran. I'm Rockin' Robbie Sims and I'm here to stay, and I do intend on going all the way."

Him and his brother Marvin intended on Robbie rising up to take Hagler's place after he retired, with Sims describing it like this: "I'm the vice president, and um... Once Marv's done and retired and he's got what he want out of the game, then I'll take over. I'll go into the presidency and I'll be the next Middleweight champion of the world."

30 years later, in the aforementioned interview from 2016, Robbie seems a lot less on edge when talking about his career.

Interviewer: "Today is the 30th anniversary of your fight with Roberto Duran-"

Sims: "Yeah."

Interviewer: "What are your memories of that fight?"

Sims: "Memories is glad that it's over." *laughs*

Robbie seems very at ease with the life that he's had after boxing, being able to train the youth around Brockton, and being able to live his life outside the shadow of his older brother. Even when recalling the hardships he faced on that night in Caesar's Palace, he can smile and laugh knowing that he never quit.

Sims: "He hit me with a shot, if you look at it, he hit me with one shot, and I thought it was it. In- In the body. And... If it wasn't for the fact that I could box, I would never *unintelligible*. That would've been it."

Sims (again): "So I stayed away from him until I can get- And then- And then when he came in close, I... I was holding on for life!" *laughs* "Y'know? But, the simple fact is that, I couldn't give up. I thought that, if I did give up... This would never happen."

I haven't seen anything from or about Sims recently apart from his daughter commenting on Rich the Fight Historian's documentary on him- And coming up next year will soon be the 40th anniversary of his fight with Duran, and hopefully, he'll be around to see it.

 

One of few times I've seen Duran be the one to initiate touching gloves in a fight, he definitely respected Sims.

 

I appreciate it, always cool to see new followers of my channel. And yeah, that's a lot of the reason that I chose to make a video for him- He could be a really exciting boxer-puncher when he chose to get in there. The Tinley I, Barkley, Duran matches are all middleweight classics in my opinion.

I wanna form my new boxing content (mostly) around fighters who don't get their due, especially fighters like Sims who don't have any highlight reels to their name- Or at least, not until now. (If you have any suggestions, my DMs are open to any of you guys, as long as it's someone who doesn't have any highlight reels on YouTube)

Though, just like everyone else, I still have my common favorites. So I'll probably make videos with guys like Witherspoon, McCallum, and Pryor at the same volume as guys like Sims.

 

His name's on the list. I'll keep him in mind when figuring out the next couple of vids I'll do.