I've been thinking about this lately. No one ever seems to fight the corner of Sugar Ray Robinson in terms of justifying his greatness, it's kinda just become a given. Every other ATG seem to have threads explaining, justifying, analysing and debating their greatness where as with Robinson it seems to have become a bit of a case of "he just is" Maybe it's just my perception of the boards, maybe there's loads of threads I've just missed, but it seems to me everyone just accepts Robinsons place as a genuine elite level ATG and no one ever has to explain their stance on him. Guys like Langford, Greb, Charles, Armstrong always to have people trying to argue their case as contender for the goat, but I rarely if ever see anyone putting much effort into arguing the same for Sugar Ray. What do people think, is his greatness beyond question? Is there a maelstrom of threads I've missed?
Yeah, he's overrated. It's hard to overate a guy who's top five by anyone's standards, but people mamage it. Robi may be top five on anyone's list, but people act like he's head and shoulders above guys like Greb, Langford, Armstrong and Charles. But that's the thing, he is extremely great. His list of wins, lack of losses in his prime, beating guys bigger than him and being the main man in his era, at his weight and the weight above, means he has something for every catagory. Then he comes back and shows some brilliant post-prime longevity too. His résumé is insane. I mean: Sammy Angott (3 times), Marty Servo (twice), Fritzie Zivic (twice), Maxie Berger, Jake LaMotta (5 times), Izzy Jannazzo, (4 times), Kid Gavilan (twice), Bobo Olson (4 times), Randy Turpin, Rocky Graziano Gene Fullmer, Carmen Basilio, Denny Moyer, Ralph Dupas, Holly Mims, Jose Basora as well as old versions of Aaron Wade and Henry Armstrong. There's others too, I just can't be arsed naming them. It's insanely deep.
I don't think his greatness can really be questionedt, but perhaps we could do with talking about why more. I don't rate him as the best ever, but he's certainly got a good case for it and he's in that class.
I tend to have him number 1 all time, number 1 WW and I class his destruction of LaMotta as the best performance I've ever seen. But if someone asked me to debate, and I mean really debate his WW stance I think I'd be a bit out of practice at justifying why, I'd be like "wait, you don't have him number 1? Ydksab!"
He’s not head and shoulders above any of those guys. I don’t think most in the know would disagree. He’s just the one least in need of in depth explanation. You could rank him 4th all time behind Greb, Armstrong, and Langford and most classical fans wouldn’t think anything of it. It’s just different with newcomers. Guys like Greb (no footage), Armstrong (relatively short peak preceded by a lackluster start, in addition to being polarizing to new age fans on film), and Langford (lots and lots of losses and draws to go with little footage) need to have their career trajectories fleshed out and their strengths explained a lot more so. Robinson, for reasons pretty easy to see, doesn’t.
I don't think he is a lock for the top spot and I don't think that I ever did. He's in the hunt for sure but there have been so many good fighters. Just the other day I read a quote from Emmanuel Stewart that really made me think about it. He talked about how Robinson was always pushing the fight, always went hard with his punches. He said that Robinson made mistakes, as all fighters do, but that he had no technical flaws. I really like that.
Imo with the top of the heap, order doesn’t really matter, For example, imo the greatest to ever do it are Greb, Robinson, Armstrong, Pep, Langford, Gans and Benny Leonard, no matter what order you put them in I can’t argue or disagree, just my thoughts
For an objective analysis of him, I've always liked this article by Lee Wylie from several years ago. https://tss.ib.tv/boxing/featured-b...-breakdown-special-edition-sugar-ray-robinson As for the OP, I too am guilty of taking his greatness (even his GOATness) for granted and instead reading justifications of why Armstrong, Greb, Langford, Ali, Charles etc could be considered greater. His resume stacks up well against the 5 or 6 best - I'm thinking Greb, Langford, Charles, Armstrong, Ali and perhaps Ray Leonard. And he is as complete a fighter as there has been on film. Perhaps if one was just listing attributes there could be some that were as good or better (certainly several better defensive fighters, when defense is viewed in isolation) but when it comes to tying everything together I don't think he has been bettered. In his best fights there is a bit of everything, and at a very very high level. That's what swings the argument in his favour for me - his resume like any other can be micro analysed to the point we say he didn't fight X or didn't fight Y in Y's prime and all that. And we can do this for everyone as it is impossible to fight all challengers. Once we agree that among the very elite level fighters, all of them faced nearly all the best of their generations, we can then assess how they did it. We all know what they did but this how is what impresses the most when it comes to SRR. Around the time he fought, Ezzard Charles, Henry Armstrong, Joe Louis, Muhammad Ali, Willie Pep and Archie Moore were also active - either slightly before or slightly after, and from what I gather he was still seen as being greater/better. Against Duran, SRL, Floyd, RJJ, Pacquiao and the modern greats we can talk of nostalgia, and against Fitz, Gans, Greb, Langford etc we can talk of fading memories but the greats who fought in his time (give or take some years), a list that includes Ali, Louis, Pep, Armstrong, Charles and Moore, none were considered better than him or as good as him, possibly with good reason.
I don't know; I don't invest any thought into making lists. Not even sure how I would rate them. By accomplishment? By who I think is the best fighter? Longevity and consistency? I know that there are guys that I am not familiar with, and fights I haven't seen.
