The great Sugar Ray Robinson had retired from boxing, had been singing and tap-dancing for three years. He didn’t have much success, and came back to the ring in ’55. He was still in shape though, said in his autobiography he would run five miles a day before a gig and then dance for five hours at night.

In that year of 1955, Robinson goes 6-1, and takes the middleweight championship from Bobo Olson with a second-round knockout. Thinks he should be named Fighter of the Year, but that title is given to welterweight champion Carmen Basilio. Sugar Ray said later this was the greatest disappointment of his career.

Basilio had started off 1955 by beating Peter Müller, thus staking his claim as the number one welterweight challenger. On June 10, he knocks out Tony DeMarco in the twelfth round to take the welterweight championship. He rematches DeMarco later that year and knocks him out again.

Basilio recalled the circumstances leading up to the biggest fight of his career: “Well, we were in a position where he was looking for an opponent and I was looking for an opponent so we thought a Basilio-Robinson fight would be a good thing for the people. So that’s what happened. They were big world championship fights and I moved up from welterweight into middleweight, to the upper class. One of my great thrills was that I fought him in Yankee Stadium.”

The fight itself is beautiful. Robinson working his jab expertly throughout, but Basilio just keeps pressing, bobbing, weaving, always aggressive. In the late rounds they’re both exhausted, but they just keep fighting right to the end, neither of them going down. It’s exciting to see the two men taking themselves beyond the limit, working from some weird otherplace of honor and mutual respect. They just never let up. It was a hard match to score, because they were both fighting in-close for most of it. In the end, the cards read 9-5-1 Basilio, 9-6-1 Robinson, and 8-6-1 Basilio, giving the rough and tumble onion farmer the middleweight crown.

Conscious of what the public wanted, not to mention what was most lucrative, Robinson and Basilio had a rematch six months later which saw Ray regain his title by decision in another terrific battle. Like their first match, Robinson vs Basilio II would receive “Fight of the Year” honors, as Sugar Ray further secured his place in boxing history by winning the middleweight title for an incredible fifth time. And it’s worth noting that each time Ray won the 160 lb. title, he beat a Hall of Famer: Jake La Motta, Randy Turpin, Carl Olson, Gene Fullmer and Carmen Basilio — that’s quite a line-up.

Robinson is considered by most the greatest fighter, pound-for-pound, of all time. His legacy could serve as instructional to someone like Floyd Mayweather Jr. who, despite never losing a fight, has failed to gain the respect of many in the public and even some of his fellow members in the boxing community.

The truth is, it is one thing to have your boxing skills held in high esteem; it is quite another to be thought of as a true fighter. A real warrior shows up to fight, every time, gives the people a spectacle, puts it all on the line for glory, pride and respect. Sugar Ray Robinson suffered losses in his career, including this first match against Basilio. Yet that night he fought an incredible battle, one that people continue to talk about more than fifty years later. Though it shows as a loss on his record, it is remembered as something more. – David Como