Misfire

Middlewight (160 Ibs.) Champion Sugar Ray Robinson, the greatest fighter, pound for pound, of his lackluster day, set his sights high. In challenging Light-Heavyweight Champion Joey Maxim, one-time Welterweight (147 Ibs.) Champion Robinson was aiming to become the third man in ring history ever to hold three titles.*For ten rounds, sweltering under the ring lights at Yankee Stadium one night last week, Robinson was right on target, bombing bumbling Maxim with a brilliant series of rights & lefts, throwing his punches in bunches and dancing skillfully out of harm's way.

But in the pressure-cooker ring, the heat (104DEG) took its toll. For the first time in a championship bout, a referee, Ruby Goldstein, called it quits after ten rounds and was lugged off to the dressing room suffering from heat prostration. Robinson, in one of his peak performances, was doing all the work while the heavier (by 15 1/2 lbs.) Maxim was content to bide his time, using his superior weight in the clinches to tire out the challenger. The strategy, such as it was, began to pay off. In Round 13, Sugar Ray, his eyes glazing and his legs rubbery, threw a prodigious right. It missed the target by a yard and Robinson sprawled on the canvas. While Maxim eyed him incredulously, the bell rang and Robinson was lugged to his corner by his handlers. Fifty seconds later, when the warning buzzer sounded, Robinson was still sprawled out on stool and ropes, unable to move. The bell rang for the 14th round, but he could not answer it. As Sugar Ray drooped in his corner, the ring announcer held high the hand of his thoroughly outpointed opponent and proclaimed "the winner by a technical knockout, and still light-heavyweight champion: Joey Maxim."

* The others: Hammering Henry Armstrong, who held the featherweight, lightweight and welterweight titles all in one year (1938) and Bob Fitzsimmons, who won the middleweight title in 1891, the heavyweight in 1897 and light-heavyweight in 1903.

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