While the United States sought ways to prop up democracy in Europe and simultaneously to avoid getting involved in the growing conflict, Sugar Ray Robinson prepared for his first professional battle at Madison Square Garden, against club fighter Joe Echeverria. With Gainford in his corner, and Horrmann as his new manager, Sugar’s adrenaline was soaring. It didn’t take Horrmann long to recognize the talent Sugar possessed. He knew that the small amounts of money he gave Sugar to sustain him at the start of their relationship would bring in huge dividends in the future.
Echeverria turned out to be an immobile pinata, and Sugar knocked him out in the second round on October 4, 1940. Except for a knot of boosters, dressed in blue and white jackets, a few monogrammed with “Crescent Gym,” there were few spectators to witness his debut as a pro. “But the next time I fight here I’m going to fill this place up,” Robinson muttered to himself as he waved to friends in the Garden’s ringside seats. “In those days you didn’t get a fight on any Garden card unless you had a number of fights before that, and a good manager. Sugar Ray Robinson turned pro on the undercard (a preliminary match) of a world title fight in Madison Square Garden. True, it was only a four-rounder, but still, he would not have gotten that berth had he not been a topflight amateur,” said noted boxing historian Herb Goldman.
Sugar’s take from the fight was $150, far more than he earned, off the books, as an amateur, and he was surprised when manager Horrmann said he could keep it all. It was a sizable sum during a period when the annual median income for a Harlem family barely exceeded two thousand dollars. Since it was Sugar’s first payday as a pro, Horrmann and Gainford decided to forgo their usual percentages. They could see the future hurricane of dollars.
In one easy fight, Sugar told his friends, he had pocketed the equivalent of three months’ rent for a three-room apartment on St. Nicholas Avenue.1 Already he was earning more than the jazz musicians he idolized at Minton’s Playhouse in the Cecil Hotel, which was near his home and just across the street from St. Thomas the Apostle Church, whose architecture Sugar admired. Sugar could boast that he earned per fight more than Dizzy Gillespie, one of the stalwarts at Minton’s, made per arrangement, though it wouldn’t be long before the twenty-two-year-old trumpeter’s career matched Sugar’s in its acceleration to the top.
After disposing of Echeverria, Sugar was so caught up in the euphoria that he forgot that his idol, Henry Armstrong, was also on the undercard. Armstrong, known as “Hammering Hank,” was the welterweight champ. But Sugar knew Armstrong had his hands full with a tough Croatian named Fritzie Zivic. After his victory over Echeverria, Sugar rushed back to the arena with his entourage to see Armstrong in the main event against the rugged Zivic. At times the two fighters stood at the center of the ring and battered each other mercilessly. Sugar winced with each punch Armstrong took, and there were quite a few, causing him to lose the fifteen-round decision. “I want Zivic,” Sugar told his mother, who had come to see her son’s professional debut. She voiced her objection, pleading with him not to pursue a fight with him. “He’ll gouge your eyes out,” Sugar remembered her telling him. But Sugar was determined to avenge his hero’s setback, and continued to pester Gainford to get the match.
The pestering gradually became an obsession. Gainford heard so much about Zivic that he had trouble keeping Sugar’s concentration on his next fight, scheduled for Savannah. This would be Sugar’s first trip back to the state where he was born. While still an amateur, Sugar had handily whipped a white fighter from Georgia, and now that both were pros, the loser wanted a rematch. There was one problem, however. In Georgia and other places in the South, blacks and whites, whether amateur or professional, were not allowed to fight each other. So, to get a measure of revenge, the white fighter’s promoter contacted the toughest black fighter in the state to challenge Sugar. He was a deaf-mute named Silent Stafford. Four days after he had vanquished his first professional opponent, Sugar outpunched Stafford, knocking him out in the second round. Sugar didn’t dally too long in Savannah. Joe Louis, now the heavyweight champion, had invited him to train with him at Greenwood Lake back East. They hadn’t been together since Louis had won the title over James Braddock in 1937. Louis had been on a mission since his loss to Schmeling in the summer of 1936, and Sugar kept tabs on each of his friend’s victories over the next four years. When Louis avenged his loss to Schmeling in 1938, Sugar was ecstatic. He was equally overjoyed when the heavyweight champ beat “Two Ton” Tony Galento and twice conquered the tough Arturo Godoy. Sugar’s excitement was uncontained when he learned later that Horrmann had arranged for him to be on the same schedule of bouts with Louis in the Brown Bomber’s defense of the crown against Red Burman at the Garden. This was certainly a step up in his professional career.
The area around Greenwood Lake, half of which is in New Jersey and half in New York, was picturesque and serene. Pine trees filled the sloping valleys and thickly covered the Ramapo Mountain range. There was no Highway 87 then, as there is now, so the trip from New York City took more than two hours, winding through many small towns in New Jersey. Most people ventured there to fish; the lake was known for its enormous basses. But while Louis was out at the lake, his trainer, Jack “Chappie” Blackburn, saw to it that he worked out in a rowboat in order to strengthen his arms. He required the same of Sugar. Blackburn, as Louis knew, was a taskmaster when it came to training. He had come by it honestly during his own career, one that included matches in which he more than acquitted himself against such all-time greats as Joe Gans and Sam Langford. “Blackburn was a stern trainer, and he looked the part,” Barney Nagler observed in Brown Bomber, his biography of Louis. “A bony face, marked by a scar on the left cheek and set off by beady eyes that peered out of angular slits, he appeared as an instrument of discipline. Usually taciturn, he was informative and kindly where Louis was involved. He knew boxing as a serious business and instilled in his pupil an early devotion to the course…”2 It could have been Melville describing Queequeg, the harpooner, in Moby Dick.
Although Louis was in his “Bum of the Month” phase, where his competition was notable for not being notable, Blackburn still made sure he prepared him rigorously, as if he were going up against a top contender. Sugar got the same treatment, and this included hours of roadwork, a nutritious diet, and plenty of rest. In his autobiography, Sugar recalled: “I was up at dawn with Joe for roadwork. At that hour, the lake was even more beautiful. The morning mist was hanging over the lake and the sun was creeping up over the mountains, and the little boy from Brewster Center was really in his heaven, running on the road with Joe Louis. We ran every morning together, Joe and me, with a car crawling along a few yards behind us. In the car was a New York City detective hired by Mike Jacobs, the promoter of the Twentieth Century Sporting Club, to be with Joe before a big fight. Also in the car was Jack Blackburn.”3 The only break from the routine came in the late evening. That’s when Sugar would rush to sit at a card table and relax.
When Sugar returned to the Garden with Louis on the last day of January 1941, he won a six-round decision. George Zengaras was the victim of the Greenwood Lake roadwork. Louis did him one better, knocking his opponent, Burman, out in the fifth round.
By the end of February Sugar had a match slated for his hometown of Detroit. Naturally, the city still made some claims on him, and all the local newspapers gave him a big buildup. The gossip and fanfare attending Sugar’s match against Gene Spencer was reported in the local press in banner headlines such as “Local Boy Returns Home After Making Good in the Big Apple” and “Former Detroiter Headlines at Olympia.” Given the publicity, Sugar’s father heard about the fight and gave his son a call. They hadn’t seen one another in the eight years since Sugar had left Detroit, and made plans to see each other after the fight. Perhaps eager to spend some time with his father, Sugar made short work of Spencer, putting him out of his misery in the fifth round.
His father took him to the old neighborhood, and they drove by some of the places where they used to live. Black Bottom, in Sugar’s opinion, was just as wretched as ever. By this time, there was a little more action outside the Bottom, in a city that was now called the “Arsenal of Democracy.” The automobile plants had been converted into manufacturers of war machinery; instead of Fords, Chryslers, and Cadillacs tumbling out of the factories, tanks rumbled off the assembly lines.
Sugar’s rendezvous with his father was short, because Gainford had Sugar on a tight leash, lest he fall in with the wrong crowd and disrupt his training schedule. Before they said their good-byes, however, Sugar’s daddy put the bite on him for a few dollars. The son almost relished the opportunity to show his father how successful he was. It wouldn’t be the last time Pop, as Sugar called him, would come looking for a handout. It was a clear case of the derelict father taking advantage of his famous son, but apparently this didn’t bother Sugar, though it mightily upset his mother when she heard about it. Sugar looked forward to fighting in Detroit or nearby; it gave him a chance to see his father, whose love and affection he still sought.
Big paydays and reminiscing with his father made Detroit doubly attractive for Sugar, but Philadelphia was soon just as rewarding, since it was closer to New York City and there were several influential promoters on the scene promising lucrative dates. One of Sugar’s first major fights was set for July 21, 1941, in Philadelphia against Sammy Angott at Shibe Park, which would later be renamed Connie Mack Stadium. Angott was not going to be a walk in the park; he had a reputation of being a real battler, and indeed the title he held as National Boxing Association lightweight champion was indicative of that ability.
However, Sugar was told that this wouldn’t be a title bout; Angott, though confident he could take Sugar, didn’t want to risk losing his crown. It was agreed that they would fight over the 136-pound limit for lightweights, thus making it a nontitle bout. Gaining weight was always difficult for Sugar, so to get a few pounds on his frame before the official weigh-in Gainford ordered him to stuff himself with bananas and milk. He was advised not to move his bowels until after the weigh-in. Promised a six-thousand-dollar purse, Sugar was prepared to hold his bowels even during the fight. When told of the amount, he put a call in to his mother and told her that if he won this fight she would never have to work again.
Sugar’s preparation for a fight followed a set routine. To keep his skin tough, he didn’t shave on the day of the fight. There was tea and toast for breakfast. There was quiet meditation and an afternoon nap. His evening meal consisted of a steak, which he consumed a couple of hours before the fight. Later, prayer sessions with his trainers would be added, along with light workouts to build up a sweat. When he arrived in the dressing room, he could expect that his trainer had unpacked his bag, spread a clean linen sheet over the rubbing table, and laid out clean woolen socks. Neatly folded were the boxing trunks, sometimes white, sometimes purple, with either Trager or Everlast emblazoned at the center of the waistband. His boxing shoes were usually freshly laced and spit-polished. Then came the rubdown with Gainford’s special oils and massage to relax the muscles. A few minutes were spent going over the strategy for the fight, and then, after a little pounding of the flat pads worn on the hands by the trainer, Sugar was ready for the walk to the arena.
Angott’s name should have been “Ingot,” or “Anvil”;
throughout the sluggish ten rounds he was like a cast-iron barnacle, clinging to and clutching Sugar. When the decision was announced, Sugar was glad to have won and even gladder to be rid of the human anchor. Angott proved to be a tough customer throughout his career, and in 132 fights only the fabulous Beau Jack was able to knock him out. “Angott was a real good boxer,” Sugar told a reporter at Sport magazine, “and Fritzie Zivic was a real good fighter. There’s a difference.” Sugar considered himself a good boxer, not a fighter.
Sugar also considered himself a good and dutiful son, always attentive to his mother’s needs and feelings. He couldn’t wait to tell her about his recent victory and the money he had earned. When he arrived home, his mother was up waiting for him. “No use of me going to bed,” she said with a smile. “I don’t have to get up early.”4
Indeed, she would never work another day in her life, and moreover, Sugar had enough money to move her into a new and nicer four-room apartment at 940 St. Nicholas, at the rate of sixty-three dollars a month; get her some new furniture; and purchase his first car—a 1941 blue Buick convertible. He had won twenty-one straight bouts and was already being touted as the “uncrowned lightweight champion.” To solidify what the sportswriters claimed, he needed a major bout at the Garden, not more preliminary fights.
With a promoter such as Mike Jacobs manipulating things, Sugar didn’t have to wait long to see his name lit up on the Garden’s marquee. On September 19, he stepped into the ring with Maxie Shapiro, then right out of it less than nine minutes later. It was an easy main event for Sugar, much easier than his next encounter, with a young lady sporting long legs, lustrous hair, and an incandescent smile.