Muhammad Ali is the greatest of all time, but even he had fighters he looked up to in his early years in the ring.
The three-time world champion is considered the greatest Heavyweight of all time, utilizing an incredible speed that was not seen in the division before or since.
While he is often regarded as an all-time great, Muhammad Ali is not always considered the pound-for-pound king of boxing history.
That honor goes to a much smaller man who inspired “The Greatest” when he was starting out as an amateur.
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Muhammad Ali called Sugar Ray Robinson his ‘idol’
Ali proclaimed the great Sugar Ray Robinson to be his “idol”, even employing the same trainer used by the former world champion early on in his career.
Ali was accompanied by Harry Wiley to a press conference, back when he was still known by his birth name, Cassius Clay.
He was asked about which fighters he looked up to as an amateur, and quick as a flash, he named Robinson as the man he looked up to in the boxing game.
“Sugar Ray [Robinson]. He was my idol. He [Harry Wiley] was with Ray for ten years. He’ll tell you all about Ray.
“When he was fighting, was he the best?” Ali asked, before Wiley claimed that Robinson was the ‘world’s greatest, pound-for-pound’. The room then exploded into laughter when Ali arrogantly asked:
“Was he as great as me?”. Wiley didn’t have an answer as the pair smiled and laughed in the press conference.
There is no doubt how good Robinson was, as he basically invented an entire ranking system due to how impressive he was in the ring.
Sugar Ray Robinson inspired the idea of the pound-for-pound rankings
Being a world champion at Middleweight and Welterweight and winning 174 fights in his career, Robinson is rightly regarded as one of the greatest fighters of all time.
However, there is always an issue comparing fighters of different weight classes.
It is hard calling somebody like Floyd Mayweather the greatest when he would be easily knocked out by any of the top Heavyweights in the division.
That is where the pound-for-pound rankings come in. While the term has been used for decades, Robinson’s dominance inspired the use of a pound-for-pound ranking system to see which fighters are the most impressive, regardless of weight classes.
Robinson is still regarded as the pound-for-pound greatest to this day, despite his career ending before most boxing fans were even born.