LITTLE ROCK — In the late 1940s and early 1950s, boxing’s welterweights, lightweights and featherweights were dominated, respectively, by Sugar Ray Robinson, Isiah “Ike” Williams and Willie Pep.
Those were my teenage years, when I rarely missed Friday night boxing bouts on radio from ringside at New York’s Madison Square Garden to south Arkansas. Among other things, I was convinced that Robinson was, as most everyone agreed, the best fighter “pound for pound.” They still label him that way, and I still believe it.
Ike Williams, whose pro career spanned 1940 to 1955, was at his considerable peak from 1945 to 1951. He might have been the best lightweight champion of them all; certainly he belonged in the all-time top five.
The late Pete Mead, who campaigned as a middleweight contender in New York from 1946-1950, thought Williams was by far the toughest 135-pounder he ever saw.
“When Ike really had it, he was the best lightweight for sure,” Mead said in a long-ago interview at his home in Jonesboro. “Ike was a sharp boxer and dynamite puncher, and maybe even meaner than [Roberto] Duran.”
Just below Williams, the featherweight division (126 pounds) was ruled by Willie Pep, who lost just once in his first 136 bouts, and finished 230-11-1 lifetime.
Recurring rumors in the late 1940s had lightweight champion Williams preparing to challenge Robinson, the welterweight champ (147 pounds), or Pep moving up to challenge Williams, but nothing happened in either direction.
At a Muhammad Ali-Jimmy Ellis heavyweight match at Houston in 1971, I met Ike Williams and visited with him at length. I asked him why he never fought Robinson or Pep. Either match could have put 50,000 people in Yankee Stadium.
Williams laughed.
“That was just publicity stuff,’’ he said. “Robinson would have killed me, and I would have killed Pep. No way Pep was going to fight me, and no way I was going to fight Robinson.
“I first saw Robinson in 1941 knocking out a guy named Jimmy Tygh in Philadelphia. Robinson blew my mind. He was so good you couldn’t believe it. I knew right then I’d never fight Robinson unless they let me take a gun with me.
“I didn’t mind welterweights. I fought Kid Gavilan three times and thought I won all three, but they only gave me one. Tony Pellone, a good welterweight, didn’t win a round from me. But the best night I ever saw, Robinson could have wiped the floor with me.”
I had never heard of one outstanding fighter paying such an unabashed tribute to another. Williams’ stark candor made the interview stick with me - to the extent this is the third time I’ve written about it in some form during a 30-year period.
“Robinson kept fighting way too long [as a middleweight] and messed up his record,” Williams said. “He was 42, at least, when I saw him against Joey Giardello [in 1963] and Joey was about 10 or 12 years younger. Joey beat him, but it was pretty close.
“What made me mad, as Joey was going out of the ring, he started yelling, ‘I just wish I could have got this guy 10 years ago.’ I couldn’t resist. I jumped out in the aisle in front of him and said, ‘So do I, you chump. You’d be on the way to a hopital.’
“I didn’t even like Robinson that much, but give him his due. He was all by himself in ability.”
Sports, Pages 18 on 06/26/2012