BoxRec

Turpin?

I would call him a "near-great;" very good fighter but not a true great fighter. His resume is thin on quality names, but that win over a Robinson who I'd say was, if not in his prime, very close to it, is huge. He had very good speed and unorthodoxy but his chin wasn't the strongest and his focus was not always there.

turpin beat robinson - ok youre right, a couple of years away from prime - and lost to him with a few cards saying he was ahead. there is no doubt he was giving a focused ray one of his toughest fights. he did have a tendency to get on his own back but turpin was near great. i'll say that too - very underrated by his home fans

An exceptional fighter in my opinion....but I am slightly biased as I lived in Leamington for a year and as a young boxing fan I was fascinated by the fact that an exceptional fighter had come from a Georgian spa town. Leamington was hardly a hotbed of fighting culture or young men fighting their way out of depravation.

When you look at Randy's record there's those two key fights with Robinson.....and the deeply cynical oulook is to say that Randy caught Robinson at the right time the first time round.

Robinson was at the end of a sort of grand 'money making' tour of Europe's capitals and working his way through the continent's middleweights and enjoying the life of a superstar and Randy arguably caught a complacent Sugar Ray at the end of this process. The second fight in America, after Robinson had regrouped, could also be viewed as the natural order of things being restablished; with Randy getting stopped.

But that win at Earls Court was still a massive achievement and interestingly Randy would go on to be a very effective light heavyweight after losing to Robinson at the Polo Grounds. I was surprised to see that he stopped Don Cockell, drop back down to middleweight to beat Cahrles Humez and go the distance with Bobo Olson at Madison Square

And of all of these titles at two weights were achieved by a lad from the sticks and when the colour of your skin was still a major disadvantage in the UK.

I think he is just outside of the Top 100 all-time, but there are a lot of guys close a that point.

His career stalled after he lost to Bob Olsen; a fighter you would think he would have beat. He was never that good again.

As mentioned by others the win over Robinson is huge.
He also beat some really good (and largely forgotton) European Middleweights as well, such as Charles Humez and Cyrille Delannoit.

At his best, Turpin probably would have a serious chance of beating any middleweight whoever lived. He just wasn't at that level for that long.