The Rust Was History in Robinson Comeback

Of the greatest sports comebacks of the 20th Century, Sugar Ray Robinson’s knockout of Bobo Olson, 44 years ago today, makes almost anyone’s list.

Robinson was 35 and coming off a 37-month retirement to face the hard-hitting, bull-like Olson, who had defended his middleweight title three times.

Both men had tried to step up to the light-heavyweight championship and failed.

Olson, the previous June, had been knocked out in three rounds by light-heavyweight champion Archie Moore. Robinson wilted on a hot New York night in 1952 and was stopped by Joey Maxim in the 14th round.

That was Robinson’s second loss in 97 fights, or since his 1943 decision loss to Jake LaMotta. He had lost his middleweight crown in 1951 to England’s Randy Turpin.

Robinson regained the title in the rematch, then announced his retirement after the loss to Maxim.

At his peak, as the dominant welterweight of the 1940s, he was considered by many the best blend of puncher/boxer in the sport’s history. He could box you dizzy with his fast, graceful style, then knock you stiff with one punch.

Robinson was a 3-1 underdog in the comeback bout, despite having beaten Olson twice, by knockout in 1950 and a decision in 1952.

In the second round, Robinson turned Olson into a helpless hulk with a blazing combination of punches, finished off with a right uppercut that put Olson on his back for the count.

Said Olson afterward: “Did I try to get up?”

To show it was no fluke, Robinson knocked out Olson five months later at Los Angeles’ Wrigley Field.

Also on this date: In 1977, the Lakers’ Kermit Washington broke Rudy Tomjanovich’s jaw in two places, loosened his teeth and broke his nose with a single right-handed punch at the Forum. The Houston forward required three facial surgeries over the next year. . . . In 1965, Branch Rickey, who desegregated baseball by signing Jackie Robinson in 1947, died at 83. Rickey collapsed while giving an acceptance speech after being inducted into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. Robinson once said of Rickey: “I really believe . . . he did more for the Negroes than any white man since Abraham Lincoln.”