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60 free Sugar Ray Robinson trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 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 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Sugar Ray Robinson's birth name?
Walker Smith Jr.
He borrowed the name from another boy's amateur ID card and it stuck.
Q 02In which state was Robinson born in 1921?
Georgia
He was born in Ailey; his father moved the family to Detroit for construction work.
Q 03Why did the teenager start boxing under the borrowed name Ray Robinson?
He used another boy's AAU membership card
He was 14 and could not legally get an AAU card until 16, so he borrowed one from a youth who had quit.
Q 04How did his famous nickname come about?
A woman at a fight said he was 'sweet as sugar'
The remark came from a lady in the audience at a fight in Watertown, New York.
Q 05Which future heavyweight champion lived on the same Detroit block as the young Robinson?
Joe Louis
Robinson was 11 and Louis 17; they later toured together in the Army's Special Services.
Q 06What is Robinson's usually cited amateur record?
85-0
It included 69 knockouts, 40 in the first round, though two teenage losses under his real name have been reported.
Q 07Robinson won New York Golden Gloves titles in 1939 and 1940 at which two weights?
Featherweight and lightweight
He beat Louis Valentine on points and then Andy Nonella by knockout.
Q 08Robinson made his professional debut in October 1940 against whom?
Joe Echevarria
He won by a second-round stoppage and fought five more times that year.
Q 09How many bouts did Robinson go unbeaten between 1943 and 1951?
91
It is the sixth-longest in professional boxing history.
Q 10Who handed Robinson his first professional defeat, in a 1943 rematch in Detroit, after knocking him out of the ring?
Jake LaMotta
LaMotta, 16 pounds heavier, knocked him out of the ring in the eighth round.
Q 11How many times did Robinson and LaMotta fight in all?
Six
Robinson won five; LaMotta joked, 'I fought Sugar Ray so often, I almost got diabetes.'
Q 12What is the nickname of the 1951 Robinson-LaMotta fight in which Robinson won the middleweight title?
The St. Valentine's Day Massacre
He stopped LaMotta in the 13th round, the first legitimate knockout loss of LaMotta's 95-fight career.
Q 13Which Martin Scorsese film depicts the Robinson-LaMotta rivalry?
Raging Bull
Robert De Niro played LaMotta.
Q 21What did Robinson tell rival George Costner, who had also adopted his nickname, before knocking him out in under three minutes in 1950?
'Your name ain't Sugar, mine is'
He added, 'We better touch gloves, because this is the only round.'
Q 22Robinson's 50-second knockout of José Basora in 1950 set a middleweight record that stood for how long?
38 years
He had earlier fought Basora to a draw in 1945.
Q 23Robinson toured Europe in 1951 with 13 companions and what famous car?
A flamingo-pink Cadillac
It caused quite a stir in Paris, where he was a hero for beating LaMotta.
Q 14Which childhood idol did Robinson beat in 1943, later admitting he 'carried' the ageing champion?
Henry Armstrong
He only took the fight because Armstrong needed money.
Q 15With whom did Robinson tour Army camps performing exhibition bouts during World War II?
Joe Louis
He refused to box when told Black soldiers could not watch.
Q 16Why was Robinson denied a welterweight title shot for years despite being 73-1-1 by 1946?
He refused to cooperate with the Mafia
He finally beat Tommy Bell for the vacant title in December 1946.
Q 17Whom did Robinson beat in December 1946 to win the vacant world welterweight title?
Tommy Bell
Bell knocked him down in a fight called 'a war', but Robinson took the 15-round decision.
Q 18Robinson dreamt he would kill his opponent before which tragic 1947 title defence in Cleveland?
Jimmy Doyle
A priest and a minister persuaded him to fight; Doyle died that night after an eighth-round knockout.
Q 19What did Robinson do with the purses from his next four fights after his opponent died following their 1947 bout?
Gave them to the dead man's mother to buy a house
He learned Doyle had intended to buy his mother a house with the fight money.
Q 20Robinson donated all but $1 of his purse from which 1950 title defence to cancer research?
Charley Fusari
He won a lopsided 15-round decision.
Q 24Why was Robinson a hero in France after his 1951 middleweight title win?
The beaten champion had dethroned Marcel Cerdan
Cerdan died in a plane crash on his way to a rematch with LaMotta.
Q 25Robinson was disqualified in Berlin in 1951 for a kidney shot against Gerhard Hecht. Why was that controversial?
The blow was legal in the US
The fight was later declared a no-contest.
Q 26Which British boxer took the middleweight title from Robinson in London in 1951?
Randolph Turpin
Robinson regained it three months later in front of 60,000 at the Polo Grounds.
Q 27Robinson's only knockout defeat came when he collapsed from heat against which light-heavyweight champion in 1952?
Joey Maxim
Ring temperature at Yankee Stadium was 103 °F; 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
He said the dance training was harder than anything he did as a boxer.
Q 29Whom did Robinson knock out in two rounds in 1955 to win the middleweight title for a third time?
Bobo Olson
It was his third victory over Olson.
Q 30Robinson called it his career's biggest disappointment when the 1955 fighter of the year award went to whom?
Carmen Basilio
'I haven't forgotten it to this day, and I never will,' he wrote.