Sugar Ray (Surinam)

Name: Sugar Ray
Birth Name: Henri April Richenel
Hometown: Amsterdam, Netherlands
Birthplace: Nickerie, Suriname
Pro Boxer: Record

Sugar Ray, or Henri April Richenel, was one of the better fighters to come out of the Dutch colonies in the 1950s. Although born in Nickerie, Surinam, he was raised and learned to box in Skeldon, Guyana. Sugar Ray returned to Surinam in 1950 and by 1954 was that country's bantam and featherweight champion. He moved to the Netherlands in 1957 and won the Dutch bantamweight title the following year. He fought 7 times in Scandinavian rings, winning 4. Many old-timers in Oslo, Norway remember his fine stylish boxing in 1958 when he stopped Norwegian Anders Haga in the 6th round. It was on a famous card known as the Black-and-White card, since two Norwegian boxers faced coloured boxers, or " Negro- boxers " as they used to say in those days, a feature which drew large crowds in a country without TV and virtually no immigration. Pictures of Sugar Ray went into the Sports Yearbooks but also in the Yearbooks for the general news of the year 1958.