Sugar Ray Robinson vs Joey Maxim(1952)

[Caractacus]

For the Light Heavyweight Championship of the World.
25.June.1952 Yankee Stadium,NYC
Robinson was a 7 to 5 favorite going into this fight.
(15 pound weight difference)
this was the only fight of his career(137 fights) in which Sugar Ray Robinson was 'knocked out'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAjGKl6I5ls

[Caractacus]

Here is part of the TALE OF THE TAPE

Robinson - Maxim

age 31 y - age 30 y
weight 159 lbs- 175 lbs
height 5 ft 11" - 6 ft 1"
reach 75.5 " - 75.5"

[klompton]

Ray Robinson weighed 157.5 and Maxim weighed 173

[DaveyMac]

I was thinking about Joey Maxim just today. We always have these greatest P4P threads and most people take SRR and some people take Ezzard Charles and a few take Archie Moore and I'm thinking gee Joey Maxim fought all three of them guys. I think he fought Ezzard five times. He fought SRR and Archie Moore in back to back fights! He fought Moore several times as well.

He also fought just a ton of other big time guys, Patterson, Bivins, Olson, Pastrano, Mills, Lesnevich, Satterfield, Walcott, Lloyd Marshall, and many others almost as good. A lot of these guys he fought more than once.

Whatever else he was Maxim was no ducker!

[Caractacus]

Joey Maxim had an olde school manager in Jack(Doc)Kearns.

also Joey Maxim(as far as I know)was one of the last famous boxing champion 'greeters'
on the Las Vegas strip.
He worked at the Tropicana up until the 1980's I believe.

[Caractacus]

Years later when some of the critics said it was the heat(103 degrees at ringside)that did Robinson in that night and not Maxim's boxing abilities.
Maxim replied

"Did I have air-conditioning in my corner?
'I pushed him all night.
"He knocked himself out".

[Caractacus]

Check out this trailer to the 1963 movie GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BARES.
In it Joey Maxim plays the nightclub owner.
Look at that intemidating look he is giving
(I cant really tell if he is glaring at the schmuck comedian on stage or maybe the cameraman filming him).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nz9S_63bkY

[klompton]

I was thinking about Joey Maxim just today. We always have these greatest P4P threads and most people take SRR and some people take Ezzard Charles and a few take Archie Moore and I'm thinking gee Joey Maxim fought all three of them guys. I think he fought Ezzard five times. He fought SRR and Archie Moore in back to back fights! He fought Moore several times as well.

The only problem is that outside of Robinson, who won nearly every round of that fight he lost 5 out of 5 to Charles and 3 out of 3 to Moore. In fact outside of Patterson (Which was a terrible decision) and Robinson (which was a fluke) he did no better than 50/50 in any series he had with greats.

[DaveyMac]

I was thinking about Joey Maxim just today. We always have these greatest P4P threads and most people take SRR and some people take Ezzard Charles and a few take Archie Moore and I'm thinking gee Joey Maxim fought all three of them guys. I think he fought Ezzard five times. He fought SRR and Archie Moore in back to back fights! He fought Moore several times as well.

The only problem is that outside of Robinson, who won nearly every round of that fight he lost 5 out of 5 to Charles and 3 out of 3 to Moore. In fact outside of Patterson (Which was a terrible decision) and Robinson (which was a fluke) he did no better than 50/50 in any series he had with greats.

I wasn't saying he was as good as those guys, just saying he was in the right place, right time, right weights, and had the guts and heart to be able to face an awful lot of superstars.

Imagine if you met a guy in a bar and he said "yeah I once fought Sugar Ray Robinson and then turned around and fought Archie Moore".

[klompton]

yeah he definately wasnt scared of anyone. ezzard charles 5 times. good lawd.

[evrenb]

His win over Patterson is a great achievement in my opinion.

[jackclem]

maxim was a very very good light heavyweight who fought in an era of all-time great light heavies . he fought everybody, was knocked out just once in a long career. the ko came at the hands curtis hatchet mans shepard...a murderous puncher....maxim fight him about three weeks later and decisioned him. great technician, good chin...not a power hitter but made up for it in skill and courage.

[Caractacus]

Here is part of the TALE OF THE TAPE

Robinson - Maxim

age 31 y - age 30 y
weight 159 lbs- 175 lbs
height 5 ft 11" - 6 ft 1"
reach 75.5 " - 75.5"

Robinson weighed 159 lbs going into the fight and weighed right afterward at 146 lbs.
(no mention of how many lbs Joey Maxim or referee Ruby Goldstein lost in it)

[Caractacus]

here is a good story about the bout with some good photographs
from the July.7.1952 edition of LIFE magazine
pp-62-64.


http://books.google.com/books?id=_FUEAA ... pg=PA61&dq

[klompton]

Robinson weighed 157 not 159.

[Ambling Alp II]

His win over Patterson is a great achievement in my opinion.

I saw most of this fight on ESPN Classic once. They didn't have a couple of the rounds. Every round that I saw should have gone to Patterson. It was a notoriously bad decision.

[Caractacus]

What i wanna know is,is there also a closed-circuit kineoscope version of this fight(Robinson vs Maxim)?
This print looks to be the 35 mm filmed version for showing in theatres and overseas in Europe and elsewhere?

[jackclem]

.....i saw this fight live on closed circuit in a movie theatre, which is the way they were mostly shown then. it was in black and white. i do remember though sugar ray slumped in his corner.

i thought ray was winning...miles ahead.....as did everyone else. i've come to realize though what a smart fight mxim did. he knew he couldn't knock ray out or out speed him. the only weapon he had was his weight and strength....maxim was a strong light heavy, which is often over looked. so he just made it a tugging, wrestling match....perfect for the that that night.
a cooler night it probably wouldn't have worked....but who's to say?

[Caractacus]

Hey Jaclem,
In which city in the USA did you watch it in?
It played in 39 theatres in 25 cities.

That fight was originally suppose to take place 2 days earlier,but a light rain post-poned it,
and the New York Yankees played the Cincinatti Reds in a double-header
the following day after the rain.
I wonder how it had went if the fight had taken place on the day that it was originally scheduled?

[Caractacus]

here is a link to a newspaper article about the fight.

http://www.news.google.com/newspapers?n ... 3172964&dq

[Caractacus]

Hey Jaclem,
Maybe you can remember back in 1969 that episode of LAND OF THE GIANTS
that featured Sugar Ray Robinson as jazz muscian Biff Bowers.
Here is the thirty second TV promo of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9y3elUKZYY

[jackclem]

...i saw the fight in cincinnati, which is where i lived at the time. it was played at the albee theatre , the biggest downtown movie house when those wonderful huge cinema houses existed. The clay/liston fight I was so hot it played at both the albee and the second largest theatre, the palace. it was fun seeing the fights that way. big crowds, all yelling advice as if we were at the actual fight site.

i don't remember that tv show with srr as a jazz musician. I did see a bit of his act on tv when he retired the first time and tap danced. not bad, but not good enough to be a money-making star.

[jackclem]

..i just looked at the trailers for that tv show which you thoughtfully printed the link. looks full of action. ironically the tune ray is playing on the trumpet is "give me the simple life."

[Nile4000]

Imagine if Ray won against Maxim, and, provided Walcott beat Marciano, went after him.

[Caractacus]

Hey Jaclem,

I was wondering if people at the closed-circuit theatre started getting up from their seats when it was obvious in the 13th round that
somethin' was wrong with Robinson.
Maxim said in an interview that he noticed somethin was wrong in the 11th.
In looking at the film here,Robinson walks back to his corner groggily after the 10th round.