Sugar Ray Robinson Trivia
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59 free Sugar Ray Robinson trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Sugar Ray Robinson trivia quiz covers the fighter most experts still call the greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound. The easy questions handle the basics: his real name, how he got the nickname, the Raging Bull rivalry with Jake LaMotta, the pink Cadillac and the fighters who borrowed the word 'Sugar' from him. From there it moves through the Golden Gloves, the 91-fight unbeaten run, the Army tour with Joe Louis, the Mafia freeze-out, the tragedy of Jimmy Doyle and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. The harder half is for boxing historians: the 50-second Basora knockout, the Berlin kidney-punch disqualification, Randolph Turpin, the heat collapse against Joey Maxim, the tap-dancing retirement, the perfect punch against Fullmer, the fifth title against Basilio, Paul Pender, the impostor in Norfolk and the fortune he spent. If you have played our boxing or Muhammad Ali quizzes, this is the deep dive on one champion. Every answer was checked against Sugar Ray Robinson's encyclopaedia entry before publishing.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Sugar Ray Robinson's birth name?
Walker Smith Jr.
Walker Smith Jr. never went back to it once his ring name stuck: 'Sugar Ray Robinson had a nice ring to it,' he said. 'Sugar Walker Smith wouldn't have been the same.'
Q 02Robinson's father farmed cotton, peanuts and corn in which Southern state before moving the family to Detroit?
Georgia
Georgia, though accounts still disagree about where he was born: his own memoir says Detroit, soon after the move north, while others give the Georgia farm town of Ailey.
Q 03Why did Sugar Ray Robinson first box under the name Ray Robinson?
He used another boy's AAU membership card
He used another boy's AAU membership card: too young to be registered himself, he was sent into the ring on the card of a Ray Robinson who had given up boxing, and the name stuck.
Q 04Which trainer, often credited with first calling Robinson 'sweet as sugar', guided him for his whole career?
George Gainford
George Gainford is often given the line, though some accounts credit a sportswriter or a woman at ringside. He stayed with Robinson from the amateur days to the end of his career.
Q 05Robinson's wife Edna Mae was the cover star of the first issue of which new magazine in 1951?
Jet
Jet put Edna Mae Robinson on the cover of its first issue in November 1951, wearing a $10,000 mink coat that her husband had given her for her birthday.
Q 06Which amateur tournament did Robinson win twice?
Golden Gloves
Golden Gloves: he won its New York featherweight title, then the lightweight title a year later. He is usually credited with an unbeaten amateur record, though some historians say he lost twice.
Q 07The New York gym where the teenage Robinson learned to box was in the basement of what kind of building?
A church
A church: the Salem-Crescent club trained in the basement of Salem Methodist Church, and at first he only worked out there, because his mother did not want him fighting.
Q 08Which jazz trumpeter called Robinson the most important thing in his life besides music?
Miles Davis
Miles Davis wrote it of 1954, when he even took on the champion's 'arrogant attitude'; he said the example of Robinson's discipline had helped him kick heroin.
Q 09Which former middleweight champion did Robinson knock out in 1952?
Rocky Graziano
Rocky Graziano went down to a single right hand. It was his last shot at the title, and he retired after losing his next fight.
Q 10What happened to Robinson in round eight of his first professional defeat, in 1943?
He was knocked through the ropes
He was knocked through the ropes by Jake LaMotta, a rival 16 pounds heavier, and lost the decision: his first defeat after 40 straight professional wins.
Q 11LaMotta joked he fought Sugar Ray so often he almost got what?
Diabetes
Diabetes: they met six times and Robinson won five. In a grim twist, it was Robinson who had the disease in his last years.
Q 12What is the nickname of the 1951 Robinson-LaMotta fight in which Robinson won the middleweight title?
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre took place on February 14, and ringside writers borrowed the name of the 1929 gangland shootings for the beating Robinson handed out before the 13th-round stoppage.
Q 13Which film depicts the Robinson-LaMotta rivalry?
Raging Bull
Q 21What did Robinson tell George Costner, another boxer calling himself 'Sugar', before their 1950 fight?
'Your name ain't Sugar, mine is'
'Your name ain't Sugar, mine is,' he said as they met in mid-ring, adding that they had better touch gloves 'because this is the only round'; Costner lasted 2 minutes 49 seconds.
Q 22Although New York was his home, Robinson won the middleweight title four of five times in which other city?
Chicago
Chicago: he won the title there four times, while New York, his home, saw him win it only once and lose it twice.
Q 23Which flashy car became Robinson's trademark in his years as champion?
A flamingo-pink Cadillac
Raging Bull is based on Jake LaMotta's own memoir, so Robinson, who won five of their six fights, appears only as the opponent; Robert De Niro played LaMotta.
Q 14Which boyhood idol, once holder of three world titles at the same time, did Robinson outpoint in 1943?
Henry Armstrong
Henry Armstrong was past his best by then, and Robinson, who won the ten-round decision, was later accused of holding back rather than hurt his hero.
Q 15With whom did Robinson tour Army camps performing exhibition bouts during World War II?
Joe Louis
Joe Louis, the heavyweight champion and once Robinson's neighbour in Detroit, was kept out of combat so that he could box for the troops, and Robinson was assigned to his tour.
Q 16Why was Robinson denied a welterweight title fight until late 1946?
He refused to cooperate with the Mafia
He refused to cooperate with the Mafia, whose fixers controlled much of the sport, and by the time he finally got his chance he had already won more than 70 professional fights.
Q 17Which Cuban contender did Robinson outpoint in his 1949 title defence in Philadelphia?
Kid Gavilán
Kid Gavilán, 'the Cuban Hawk', had already lost a non-title decision to Robinson a year earlier; two years after this second defeat he was welterweight champion himself.
Q 18Robinson dreamt he would kill which opponent the night before their tragic 1947 title fight in Cleveland?
Jimmy Doyle
Jimmy Doyle never regained consciousness after the eighth-round knockout and died the next day. Robinson had tried to withdraw that morning, until a priest was brought in to reassure him.
Q 19After a challenger died of injuries from their 1947 title fight, who received money from Robinson?
The dead man's mother
The dead man's mother: he had been fighting to buy her a house, Robinson's biographer Wil Haygood says, and Robinson gave her money from his next bouts so that she could have it.
Q 20Robinson kept just one dollar of a 1950 title purse and gave the rest to what?
Cancer research
Cancer research: the following May he was in Paris as a cancer fund's envoy, and greeted the French president's wife with two kisses on each cheek.
A flamingo-pink Cadillac convertible: it stood outside his nightclub at home and went with him to Europe in 1951, where it caused a stir on the streets of Paris.
Q 24Jake LaMotta, the champion Robinson dethroned in 1951, had won the middleweight title from which Frenchman?
Marcel Cerdan
Marcel Cerdan lost the title to LaMotta in 1949 and was killed in an air crash on his way to the rematch.
Q 25Why was Robinson's 1951 disqualification in Berlin for a kidney punch so disputed?
The blow was legal in the US
The blow was legal in the US but a foul under European rules, and the disqualification against Gerhard Hecht was later changed to a no-contest.
Q 26Which British boxer took the middleweight title from Robinson in London in 1951?
Randolph Turpin
Randolph Turpin ended Robinson's run of 91 fights without defeat, but was champion for barely two months: Robinson stopped him in the tenth round of their return in New York.
Q 27Robinson's only stoppage defeat came when he collapsed from heat against which bigger champion in 1952?
Joey Maxim
Joey Maxim held the light-heavyweight title and was much the heavier man. In a New York heatwave Robinson could not come out for the 14th round, and even the referee had to be replaced.
Q 28What did Robinson do during his retirement from 1952 to 1954?
Sang and tap-danced in show business
Sang and tap-danced in show business: he said the dance training was harder than any boxing camp, but with his income and businesses fading he was back in the ring within three years.
Q 29Whom did Robinson knock out in two rounds in 1955 to win the middleweight title for a third time?
Bobo Olson
Bobo Olson had become champion while Robinson was retired, but he never solved him: Robinson won all four of their fights, three of them by knockout.
Q 30What did Robinson tell an inquest that asked if he had meant to get his opponent 'in trouble'?
That was his business
That was his business: 'Mister, it's my business to get him in trouble,' he told the Cleveland coroner after the 1947 death. His mother believed the tragedy haunted him for the rest of his life.