More Than Enough

Gone were the gaudiest characters--the clowning dwarf, the private golf pro, the personal barber--who had ridden the coattails of the champ. When Sugar Ray Robinson arrived in Chicago last week, a challenger once more for the middleweight title he had given up when he retired in 1952, his entourage had been trimmed to a modest number that included his wife, his son, a cook, a valet, a personal bodyguard, a sparring partner, two trainers, two managers and two press-agents. For a man of Sugar's high tastes, his relative economy suggested that he meant business.

Few fight fans were impressed. Champion Bobo Olson, 27, was far from a tiger. Sugar himself had beaten the balding Hawaiian beach boy twice in the past; Light-Heavyweight Champion Archie Moore took Bobo apart last summer. But at 35, Sugar seemed stale and slow. His comeback so far had been unimpressive; in January he was beaten by a clumsy trial horse, Tiger Jones. "I've had to come a long way," he admitted himself, "a lot further than people believe. The hard part was to keep faith in myself when everybody else was knocking me. Just my faith in God, my wife and my own self have kept me going." At the end of the long, tough training grind, Sugar seemed to have recovered some of his old confidence. On his last day in training camp, he nodded toward two of his sparring partners--aggressive, Olson-type plodders--and asked his managers, "We won't be needing these gorillas any more, will we?" "No," said the managers. So, one after the other, headguards and all, Sugar knocked the men stiff.

In the ring with Bobo, he was just as brisk. For one round he danced and jabbed, held in the clinches and saved his strength. The old snap was back in his punches, though, and the perfect timing. Again and again, Sugar suckered his man into a lead and caught him with a wicked counterpunch. The question was: How long could Sugar stand the pace?

The challenger did not hang around for an answer. Early in the second round Bobo crowded in and Sugar shoved him off. Carelessly, Bobo tapped his gloves together in a meaningless gesture. In that instant the challenger became Sugar Ray Robinson, the champion. His right whipped out and clouted Bobo on the head, bouncing him off balance. His left followed, flush on the face. Bobo went down for good.

Once Sugar Ray had been the best fighter, pound for pound, in the professional prize ring. He would never be that good again, but he was still good enough.

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