BOXING Sugar Ray Robinson Wins World Title

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28267, 3 May 1957, Page 10

BOXING Sugar Ray Robinson Wins World Title

(N.Z. Press Association-Copyright)

(Rec. 10 p.m.) CHICAGO, May 1.

Sugar Ray Robinson to-night won the world middle-weight boxing championship for an unprecedented fourth time with a terrific left hook to the chin that knocked out Gene Fullmer in the fifth round in the Chicago Stadium.

Robinson’s upset victory was the most exciting of his amazing 17year reer. He went into the ring an underdog at 3 to 1 against the rugged Utah “battering ram" who had outpointed him decisively for the title at New York last January The knock-out came with stunning suddenness. The 35-year-old Robinson appeared to be tiring in the fifth

round just before he landed the left hook that ended the battle in spectacular, fashion before a crowd of 14,753.

Fullmer, a muscular, bullshouldered 25-year-old mining welder, who never had been stopped in his previous 44 bouts, and who had been floored but three times, was smashed sidways to the canvas. He landed on his knees and then slithered to his stomach.

He tried to rise and had pushed himself partly off the canvas at the count of eight, but then he slumped forward again as the referee, Frank Sikora, waved the full 10 count over him. Fullmer then rolled over helplessly on to his side and his handlers came out and assisted him to his feet. Fullmer, who weighed list sjlb, to Robinson’s list s|lb, was ahead on points on the score sheets of all three ring officials by a uniform count, 19 to 18. Robinson’s victory not only made him the only boxer in any division in ring history to win the same world championship'four times, but it also assured him a rich title defence against the welter-weight champion, Carmen Basilio, in June or July. Fullmer went into the ring a heavy favourite because of his unanimous victory - over Robinson at Madison Square Garden (New York) and because he scaled 21b more today than he did then.

But Robinson upset all expectations by first fighting a very smart battle to-night and, second, by landing the left hook that he had been preparing for weeks in training. In the January fight, Robinson made the mistake of leading into Fullmer with left jabs and letting Fullmer use his swarming charges as counter-weapons that caught Robinson off balance again and again and forced him to grab and hold.

Robinson - , unquestionably one of the greatest fighters in ring history, registered his 140th victory and his 91st knock-out in 148 professional fights. That record now includes four knock-outs in his four wins for the middle-weight championship. In addition, he held the world welter-weight title befoi “ and gave it up when he first became middle-weight champion on a 13-round knock-out over Jake la Motta in 1951. He lost the middleweight title to Randolph Turpin in July, 1951, but recaptured it from Turpin in September of the same year. Robinson retired from boxing with, the title in December, 1952, to become a song and dance man, but he returned to the ring in January, 1955, and recaptured the crown for the second time from Bobo Olson in December, 1956. He lost it to Fullmer last January.

Robinson’s dressing room, so stormed by admirers that reporters were almost unable to get in, was a place of delirious jubiliation. Robinson gave credit to the former heavy-weight champion. Joe Louis, for his victory. Robinson said Louis had been in his corner during every work-out since he came to Chicago to finish his training two weeks ago, and had “corrected mistakes that I couldn’t catch myself.”