How impressed are you when you watch footage of Sugar Ray Robinson?

You pose great questions. It's very difficult to find boxing fans who are completely objective. Other champions who receive the same "cloak of invincibility" are Greb, Marciano and ALI. It's almost sacriligious to say even the slightest negative thing about these champions without some backlash from their fans.

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I'm a HUGE fan of Robinson, Greb, Marciano, ALI and others. However, why even discuss boxing if all your favorites are invincible?

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The other reason it's difficult to discuss Robinson in anything less than the highest regard is because fans follow fans blindly and with little or nothing to back up their beliefs. Most people agree that Robinson is the greatest. I can tell you that Robinson has proven himself more than we can count. I also concur with the wide-spread belief that he is indeed the greatest P4P. However, NO fighter is without weaknesses.

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I can see what you see at middleweight. I can see why some would believe that Robinson is not totally unbeatable at 160. Read up on the opinions of Harry Greb fans. How do people rank him so high when there is NO footage of him at ANY weight? At least with Robinson, there is footage at 160. I still believe that Greb is in the Top 4 at 160, along with Robinson, Monzon and Hagler. However, I don't think ANY of them would dominate or go undefeated in a series of fights against their Top 4 counterparts. I think Robinson would have the best record of the 4 but he would lose at least one to Greb. He'd beat Monzon and Hagler.

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Now to your questions.

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What I see in Robinson is near perfection. True, he does take more hits than he did at 147 or than he should at all. However, he always had that firey warrior's mentality. He loved to mix it up because he had the deep rooted belief that, if he hits you solidly, you're going down. He could outbox anyone but he also had deep faith in his power. Rarely was he wrong. I see things that no other middleweight could ever do.

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I've never seen a triple left hook like Robinson's. I've also never seen a fighter with his perfect balance. I think Roy Jones would have been a nightmare for Robinson at 160. However, Robinson would have exposed what we learned later, that Jones could be stopped. I don't think Roy had a glass jaw. I think the move to heavyweight, and back, ruined him as a fighter. I also think Jones would have beaten Robinson at 168, where Jones was at his absolute best. Robinson would stop Jones at 160.

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BQ1: I don't think anyone has seen Robinson at 147 because there is no known footage of him there. Sadly, boxing was marred with politics and mob activity in those days. It's hard to tell just how good certain fighters would have been. Look at the great Charlie Burley. For years there was NO footage of him in ANY of the many classes he fought in. He was often forced to fight much bigger men. Finally, someone unearthed footage of ONE fight. Burley was clearly on the wrong end of politics, business and mob ties. He was virtually shut out when the middleweight title was being passed between Zale, Graziano, LaMotta and Robinson.

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BQ2: See Above. The main reason there is no footage on Robinson at 147 is because he was younger and Black. Black fighters didn't have many rights in those days. I'm sure there were other business reasons as to why there is no footage. The bottom line is that Robinson had to earn his 120-1, at 147, the hard way. Because he refused to do business with mob figures who wanted him to throw fights for their fighters, he paid a heavy price in being shut out, much the same way Burley was.

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Robinson didn't receive his first shot at the welterweight title until he was almost 30 years old. Only after Marty Servo, another mob tied fighter, retired, did Robinson get a shot at the vacant title, defeating another very good fighter in Tommy Bell.

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In those days, TV meant money. The other reason there is no footage or Robinson is that TV didn't become a big part of boxing until his middleweight days.

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I still hold out hope that someone will eventually surface with footage of Robinson at 147. Still, given all that we know, he was as close to perfect as a fighter could be when he was at his best. His overall record was 201 fights. 175-19-6. All except 4 of those losses came after the age of 35.

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I've seen his fights against Graziano and La Motta. I thought he was a beast, took more punches than I expected him to take given his reputation and nickname, but he was unbelievably sugary offensively.

I also heard that someone has unearthed footage of a Ray Robinson fight at welterweight quite recently.

he was offensively magnificent and everything he did he did it perfectly.yes it wasn't in his style to be to defensive but he didn't need to be.he relied on his boxing and his aggressive attacks to get the job done. still the footage of him as a middleweight is evidence enough for me.

things seem to be all over place back then in regards to fight footage.i don't think there is anything of him at 147 except old pictures from newspapers of the time.there's footage of guys from well before his time right up to joe louis and onwards so it's stange that theres no footage of him.heavyweights were always the main focus years ago.

More than half a century after he last fought, Robinson still awes us whenever we get to see him in action in video footage many of which have been preserved nicely. Galactus is right on---we only get to see a Robinson already on the last few legs of his prime, at middleweights. We never get to see him in youthful best at welterweights where he first tangled with Jake LaMotta who was by then already a full blown middleweight trifling with light heavyweights. We only rely on documented accounts of scribes and experts who actually saw Robinson at his most mesmerizing form

In fairness to Robinson and the likes of Armstrong, Ali Greb and even Jack Johnson and Rocky Marciano, and to old-time fans like me, there has never been any claim that these ATGs are invincible or untouchable even at their prime best. For then as now there always emerged opponents both obscure or good to great who made them look bad and even went on to actually extend or beat them. That's even on their records.

What made them great was not only their skills and outstanding career accomplishments but their profound character., their genuine pride and love for boxing, their loath to losing but acceptance of its inevitability and their determination to rise from adversities.

There maybe better fighters than them today but definitely not better and genuine lovers of boxing.

imagine only seeing Ali after he was 30 after the first frazier fight , he had lost his speed of foot and stamina and become flat footed compared with the young clay/Ali . i wouldn't rate that ali that lost to norton as a great, tough yes but not unbeatable ,now if robinson was any thing like Ali and was faster,sharper and just plain better when younger you can imagine how good he was ...