Sugar Ray Robinson, Jimmy Doyle, and a Dream Come Horribly True

By Chris “Man of Few Words” Benedict

Reminiscing over their fight together on Curt Gowdy and Don Dunphy’s mid-1970s stroll down memory lane called The Way It Was, Sugar Ray Robinson and Rocky Graziano were asked to name the heaviest puncher each man had faced. Both conjured the same answer. Artie Levine.

The right-handed Jewish kid from Brooklyn also happened to possess a demonic left hook, one of which he unleashed upon Robinson’s jaw in the 4th round of their 1946 fight and “flopped me like a fish” as Sugar Ray would recall. Very possibly the only reason Robinson was able to pick his body, his senses, and his pride off the floor before surviving, rejuvenating, and knocking Levine out in the 10th had to do with the fact that referee Jackie Davis personally escorted Artie to a neutral corner rather than simply order him to do so on his own as protocol dictates, making Ray the beneficiary of a 21-second long count. Robinson remembered his trainer George Gainford repeatedly attempting to impress upon him what round it was before finally penetrating through the fog in Sugar Ray’s head. “That’s how Artie Levine could scramble your brains,” Robinson laughed well after the fact.

Six weeks later, Robinson was matched against Tommy Bell for the welterweight title vacated by the retired Marty Servo, a fighter Ray had beaten twice and who suffered a deviated septum at the hands of Rocky Graziano in a non-title bout that March, briefly ending his career until launching a two-fight comeback in 1947 with a 50/50 success rate. Bell rattled off 29 consecutive victories going into the championship fight and put Sugar Ray down in the 2nd round, more than holding his own before being dropped himself in the 11th and losing a somewhat lopsided unanimous decision. Following this first of six world title wins, Robinson admitted to accepting an immediate string of quick and easy paydays-against journeymen Bernie Miller, Freddie Wilson, and Eddie Finazzo in just over a week-so that he could concentrate on the grand opening of the Sugar Ray Café on the 7th Avenue block between 123rd and 124th Streets which he purchased in its entirety, adding a real estate agency, bar and grill, and barbershop. Robinson’s pink Cadillac was a frequent and welcome sight parked out front of the café or maneuvering through traffic between Harlem and mid-town Manhattan.

After nursing cuts suffered during another non-title outing against Georgie Abrams, Robinson finally signed a contract to make his first defense against Jimmy Doyle who rectified a spotty start to his career with 24 straight wins before running into Artie Levine and his left hook on March 11, 1946. Outworking and outpunching Levine through the first eight rounds and well ahead on points, Doyle was kept from continuing his valiant effort by Jackie Davis (of Robinson/Levine long count infamy) following the third knockdown administered by Artie in the ninth. Doyle would require hospitalization due to a severe concussion and take a nine-month layoff from which he would return to win his next five in a row before attempting to swipe the welterweight crown from atop Sugar Ray Robinson’s gleaming pompadour. The fight would be held on June 24, 1947 at the Cleveland Arena, site of Doyle’s loss to Levine as well as two more recent wins over Ralph Zannelli and Danny Kapilow. The boxing commission in Jimmy’s hometown of Los Angeles refused to sanction another fight in which he participated based on the worrying frequency and severity of knockouts suffered by Doyle in the not distant past.

Boasting a mixed-race Creole heritage, Jimmy’s real last name was Delaney. His mother Marie had married Edouard who came from a black family in Louisiana’s French-speaking Bayou backcountry. Ambivalent about his long-term pugilistic prospects, Doyle was intent on buying his mother a house with his earnings and was very well aware that nothing brought in the cash faster than a title belt strapped around one’s waist.
In the days preceding his meeting with Doyle, Ray Robinson was staying at the Cleveland home of a friend named Roger Price and it was there that he experienced an awful dream the night before the fight. The nightmare was brief. But disturbing. In it, he flattens Jimmy with a left hook and stands above his fallen opponent, looking down into vacant eyes. Hushed disturbances emanating from the horror-stricken spectators gain slow measures of audible alarm. “He’s dead. He’s dead.”

A badly shaken Robinson took his appeals for a postponement to the boxing commission when he saw that he was getting nowhere with George Gainford who ultimately called in a local clergyman. The priest was successful in offering some comfort to Ray by giving the fight his blessing, literally and figuratively. Robinson not only regained his composure but was the clear aggressor throughout, establishing and maintaining the advantage in all of the first five rounds. Two opportunities for Jimmy to turn the tide came in the 6th and 7th when he stunned Robinson in both rounds but, despite having his man hurt and vulnerable, could not conjure the stamina either time to finish him off. Ray would find and seize upon the opening he had been waiting for in the 8th, throwing two rapid-fire right hands-one to the belly, one to the head-followed by the left hook featured in his premonition that forced Doyle to tumble backwards, slamming the back of his head on the mat as he reached the terminus of his descent.
Robinson would later mutter in disconsolate torment about “seeing my dream come true, horribly true.” Back in the mix once more was referee Jackie Davis who had officiated both fighters’ contests with Artie Levine and now began the count on Doyle as the clock neared the three-minute mark. Jimmy stirred when it reached “four”, blindly reaching out to grasp the bottom ring rope but finding only empty space. The bell tolled at the count of “nine” and Doyle was hoisted back to his corner where Davis lectured his cornermen for failing to sufficiently revive their fighter for the beginning of round nine before being made aware of Jimmy’s grim condition.

The ringside physician summoned a stretcher and ambulance, his voice piercing through the somber silence that fell like a shroud over Cleveland Arena. Sugar Ray Robinson voicelessly cursed himself for allowing everyone to overrule his reticence over whether the fight should even happen. Doctors at St. Vincent’s Charity Hospital diagnosed a blood clot and concussive head injury resulting from a separated cerebral membrane. Worse still was the respiratory paralysis which was treated with infusions of oxygen and carbon dioxide. Having done all that they could do and finding their efforts miserably lacking, a chaplain administered last rites just before Ray and his wife Edna arrived.
Jimmy Doyle was pronounced dead the following afternoon.

Coroner Samuel Gerber opened an official inquest which was both medical and judicial in nature. The first matter was to clear up the confusion over whether Doyle’s injuries stemmed from the beatings he had taken in previous fights, most notably by Artie Levine, or freshly sustained from the blunt force trauma of his head striking the canvas with such immediate violence after Robinson’s lethal left hook as was the determination made by Cleveland Boxing Commission Chairman A.F. Hagedorn. Interrogated by Gerber, Ray (now fearful of the very real possibility of manslaughter charges, which had also been levied against Max Baer following the 1930 ring death of Frankie Campbell) was made to feel like a body snatcher prowling for an innocent victim when asked why he chose Jimmy Doyle as his opponent.

“He picked me,” Robinson reminded him. “I had something he wanted. My title.” Intended to sound matter-of-fact and not callous, Ray countered the ridiculous query as to if or when he knew he had Doyle in trouble by replying, “Mister, it’s my business to get him in trouble.” Robinson would continue to routinely cause trouble for and be troubled by fellow prizefighters for another eighteen years. Competing in an astounding 200 professional bouts, Sugar Ray would win 173 of them, 108 by knockout.
Miles Davis, of all people, convinced Robinson to hang up the gloves for good on November 20, 1965 following a split decision loss during which he was knocked down in the 4th round by Joey Archer who journalist and boxing enthusiast Pete Hamill joked “couldn’t break a potato chip with a punch”. Standing over Robinson’s rubbing table in the dressing room of the Pittsburgh Civic Arena while the disheartened legend was tended to, Miles plaintively croaked, “You’re packin’ it in, Ray.”

The paradoxical Robinson can best be described as a tortured artist or brooding genius. Harmonizing the cacophonous discrepancies of a dual personality is a tricky business. One way in which Ray sought to accomplish this was by using his charitable endeavors with the March of Dimes, Damon Runyon Cancer Research Center, and Boys and Girls Club as conduits for the selfless and genuine benevolence which was often denied his own family and fellow competitors. Carmen Basilio would carry a lifelong grudge against the fighter most consider the pound-for-pound best ever but he contemptibly referred to as “an egotistical sonofabitch”.

Nonetheless, Marie Doyle was also a recipient of Robinson’s altruistic indulgence. Long before his money would vanish hand in hand with his memory, Sugar Ray would establish a trust fund built upon the cornerstone of winnings from his next several fights so that Marie could buy the house her son Jimmy did not live to give her.

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