RINGSIDE
like Floyd Mayweather Jr.,” allow me to remind them it’s not the same scenario. Top fighters of Mayweather’s era and this current era are guaranteed exorbitant paydays regardless of who they fight, what kind of ratings they get or how many tickets they sell. I wish Burley were more popular and appreciated during his fighting days. I wish he could have still made welterweight when Robinson was a welterweight, or maybe he could have held off retirement long enough to face the middleweight version of Sugar Ray. But saying Robinson swerved Burley is like saying Pernell Whitaker avoided Terry Norris or Mayweather ducked Winky Wright. Could Whitaker and Norris have conceivably shared the ring in 1995 when Sweet Pea lifted the WBA 154-pound belt from Julio Cesar Vasquez? Would Wright have boiled his body back down to junior middleweight for a fight with Mayweather after “Money” won the WBC 154-pound strap from Oscar De La Hoya in 2007? The answer is yes, but fans were not clamoring for those matchups, so the fact those bouts never happened should not detract from Whitaker’s and Mayweather’s greatness. And Norris and Wright did not need those pound-for-pound stars on their ledgers to be inducted into the IBHOF. Same deal with Burley. He’s enshrined because of the fights he had against fellow Hall of Famers – Moore, Ezzard Charles, Fritzie Zivic, Holman Williams, Lloyd Marshall, Jimmy Bivins and Billy Soose – not for the fights that did not happen. We can give the man his flowers without pissing on Robinson’s reputation and legacy.
By 1942, a 21-year-old Robinson was already among boxing’s top attractions.
matchup? Not on the East Coast, where Robinson’s fans were. And
would Robinson have been paid in the $15,000-$25,000 range for a Burley fight, as he was for the LaMotta bouts? I don’t think so, which is why Ray risked his neck against the popular Italian- American bruiser, just as Zale and Cochrane did with Graziano. Robinson’s fights with LaMotta were not easy. LaMotta’s suffocating pressure and weight advantage in their rematch (160½ pounds to Ray’s 144½) led to the first loss of Robinson’s career. However, all five bouts did strong business – especially for non-title showdowns between young up-and-comers (Jake was only 20 and Ray was 21 when they first shared the ring). Bout No. 1 attracted 12,748 to Madison Square Garden;
almost 19,000 gathered at Olympia Stadium in Detroit for the rematch; 15,000 attended the rubbermatch (also at Olympia Stadium); 18,000 filled MSG for bout No. 4; and 14,755 assembled at Comiskey Park in Chicago for their fifth tussle, a 12-round split decision that the welterweight had to gut out. Robinson was not one to avoid challenges, and he wasn’t afraid to lose despite his sterling record, but he also knew his worth. If anyone says, “That’s not fair, Dougie, you’re giving Robinson a pass that you never gave to modern stars
HHHH
Do you agree with my take on Robinson-Burley? There was a lot of information on their respective careers that could not be fit into this column, so I’d welcome further discussion and debate. Share your opinions via Comeoutwriting@gmail.com.
20 RINGMAGAZINE.COM
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