Sugar Ray Robinson vs. Cliff Beckett

Ray Robinson 155 lbs beat Cliff Beckett 157 lbs by TKO at 1:45 in round 3 of 10

• Date: 1950-04-21
• Location: Memorial Hall, Columbus, Ohio, USA
• Referee: Mutt Schartz

Ray Robinson Stops Beckett
Associated Press, April 21, 1950

Sugar Ray Robinson, the welterweight champion, showed young Cliff Beckett how to box, feint and counter-punch before putting him out for keeps late in the third round.

Beckett, of Sudbury, Canada, was bleeding profusely from cuts over his left eye and the back of the head when Referee Mutt Schwartz called a halt with 1:45 gone in the third.

The non-title fight, which drew 2,231 fans, was scheduled for ten rounds.

Sugar Ray simply timed himself in the first round, hardly moving a glove while Beckett tried to force the fighting—but managing to connect only with a few lefts that Robinson took on his gloves.

In round two, Robinson began clowning around; once again picking off Beckett's ambitious lefts with his gloves, Midway, Robinson went to work with a flurry of lefts and then a straight right to the jaw. Beckett went down for nine. That's when he cut the back of his head.

Robinson took things easy until the beginning of the third, before he repeated his left-right flurry—this time for good.

The clincher was another straight right. Beckett got up somewhere around the nine or ten count, blood streaming from the cuts. He was obviously in no shape to continue and Referee Schwartz took only a passing look at him before raising Robinson's arm in token of victory. [1]