Sugar Ray Robinson

 

 

 

Photo: Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images

Quick Facts

Name

Sugar Ray Robinson

Birth Date

May 3, 1921

Death Date

April 12, 1989

Did You Know?

As a boy growing up in Detroit, Sugar Ray Robinson was neighbors with heavyweight champion Joe Louis.

Did You Know?

Sugar Ray Robinson held the world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951, and by 1958, he had become the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times.

Did You Know?

Sugar Ray Robinson's birth name was Walker Smith Jr. He became known as Sugar Ray Robinson as an under-aged boxer, after using a fellow boxer's Amateur Athletic Union card to fight in a show.

Place of Birth

Ailey, Georgia

Place of Death

Culver City, California

Originally

Walker Smith Jr.

 “To be a champ you have to believe in yourself when no one else will.”

—Sugar Ray Robinson

Sugar Ray Robinson

Biography

(1921–1989)

Considered one of the greatest boxers of all time, Sugar Ray Robinson held the world welterweight title from 1946 to 1951, and by 1958, he had become the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times.

Who Was Sugar Ray Robinson?

 

Sugar Ray Robinson turned pro in 1940 and won his first 40 fights. Over his 25-year career, Robinson won the world welterweight and middleweight crowns and was dubbed "pound for pound, the best." By 1958, he had become the first boxer to win a divisional world championship five times. He finished his career in 1965 with 175 victories. 

Early Years

Robinson was born Walker Smith Jr. on May 3, 1921, although the location is a source of debate. Robinson's birth certificate lists his place of birth as Ailey, Georgia, while the boxer stated in his autobiography that he was born in Detroit, Michigan. What is known is that Robinson grew up in Detroit, and he was 11 years old when his mother, tired of her husband's absence from the family's life, up and left the city, moving herself, her son and two daughters to Harlem.

But New York proved rough in other ways. With little money — Robinson helped his mother save for an apartment by earning change dancing for strangers in Times Square — the Smiths built their new life in a section of Harlem dominated by flophouses and gangsters.

Fearful that her son would get pulled into this shady world, Robinson's mother turned to the Salem Methodist Episcopal Church, where a man by the name of George Gainford had just started a boxing club.

It didn't take much for Robinson, who'd been a neighbor of heavyweight champ Joe Louis back in Detroit, to strap on fighting gloves. For the first bout of his career in 1936, he borrowed the Amateur Athletic Union card of another boxer, whose name was Ray Robinson, to enter the ring. Robinson wouldn't go by his birth name for the rest of his career. The nickname "Sugar" came from Gainford, who had described the young boxer as "sweet as sugar"; reporters soon began using the moniker.

"Sugar Ray Robinson had a nice ring to it," Robinson later said. "Sugar Walker Smith wouldn't have been the same."

The young boxer quickly moved up the ranks. He won his first Golden Gloves title (featherweight) in 1939, and then repeated the accomplishment in 1940. He turned pro that same year.

With affection,

Ruben