. . . And Champion Again

When Sugar Ray Robinson lost his world middleweight crown in London two months ago to Britain's Randy Turpin, the question rose on both sides of the Atlantic: Was Robinson getting too old for the ring? (He is 31.) One evening last week 61,370 fight fans jammed into New York's Polo Grounds* to learn the answer. Though U.S. bettors had made ex-Champion Robinson a 2-to-1 favorite, there were plenty of skeptics and loyal Britons (including Ambassador Sir Oliver Franks, who wired his best wishes from Washington) who were sure that Randy would take him again.

Count of Nine. By the end of the ninth round, it looked as though they were right. As smoothly aggressive as ever, Robinson danced in against his opponent,/- stabbing with his lightning left, dancing away from Turpin's awkward counters, bouncing back with his famed flurry of rights and lefts, to take the first four rounds on points. But somehow his legs had lost their old spring, his long lefts failed to connect. Turpin shook off the punches that did land, and began crowding in. Hooking when he should have jabbed, jabbing when he should have hooked, his head sometimes a craning target, sometimes sunk between his shoulders, he moved onto the offensive. In the seventh, Robinson was plainly tiring; in the eighth and ninth, Turpin took charge.

Then, in the first seconds of the tenth, the two fighters collided in mid-ring. Robinson backed off, blood streaming from a 1 1/2-inch gash above his left eye. As he said in the dressing room afterward, he knew then it was "do or die." He charged in with both arms driving, shook Turpin with a right uppercut, then floored him with another.

After a nine count, Turpin gamely got up for more. A wiser fighter might have taken another knockdown and waited out the storm. Robinson flurried him across the ring. In the next 31 savage seconds, with Turpin sagging helplessly, propped against the ropes, Robinson landed 25 blows, chopping at Turpin's jaw, switching to the body, flailing away again at the head. Somehow Turpin stayed on his feet. But the end had come. With only eight seconds to go in the round, the referee stepped between the fighters and mercifully stopped the match.

Time to Retire? The bad news reached England around 3 a.m. The first reactions conditioned by weeks of prematch gibes at unfair Yankee boxing rules and prejudiced officials, added up to "most peculiar." Next day's headlines proclaimed: "Turpin says: 'I could have fought on!'" But later, when Britons took a hard look at the fight movies, the tune quickly changed to a chorus of: "I say the referee was justified ..."

Robinson had shown that he is no has-been--not yet, anyhow. Reflecting on his own mistakes, however, he diagnosed "that little pause--the little delay. That's age." After a couple of title defenses in the U.S. and a rubber match with Britain's Turpin, he is thinking about retiring next year. So, oddly enough, is 23-year-old Randy Turpin, according to London's Evening Standard: "I mean what I say. I shall pack up in September 1952. I don't care how much money is involved. I'm not going to finish up punch-drunk or any other kind of drunk."

*In eleven other U.S. cities, 31,510 more customers saw the bout on television in movie theaters. Total receipts: more than $800,000 --biggest gate ever drawn by a non-heavyweight bout. /- Who was wearing two sets of trunks: over his old blue-and-gold pair, a black pair with white stripes to give a sharper television image.

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