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Sunday, March 14, 1999 By Bruce Keidan, Post-Gazette Sports Columnist
NEW YORK -- As a result of a meeting last night in midtown Manhattan, the boxing world now has one heavyweight champion instead of the usual two or occasional three. The next order of business should be to select the planet's preeminent welterweight, a task easier said than done.
For all of our fascination with heavyweights, the welterweight division, with its upper weight limit of 147 pounds, is the best division in boxing. Has been for years. Ever since Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns were co-tenants in its penthouse suite.
Up until one month ago, prize fighting's three major sanctioning bodies - the World Boxing Council, the World Boxing Association and the International Boxing Federation - recognized three different welterweights champions - Oscar de la Hoya, Felix Trinidad and Ike Quartey. Then in an eight-day span, de la Hoya defeated Quartey and Trinidad shelled Pernell Whitaker, a former 147-pound champ. Neither de la Hoya nor Trinidad ever has lost a fight. And everything that rises must converge.
But there are obstacles. Rival promoters, Bob Arum and Don King, would have to agree upon a formula for dividing the spoils. The pay-per-view arrangements are similarly muddled. Worse yet, de la Hoya at 26 is still a growing boy; he isn't sure how long he can remain a welterweight.
"I'm walking around at 160 pounds," he confided to reporters shortly before his confrontation with Quartey. A bout with Trinidad might have to be conducted under a contract that allowed them both to weigh as much as 154 pounds, he said.
Problem: At 154 pounds, they aren't welterweights. They are junior middleweights. Or super welterweights, if you prefer. But whatever they are, they aren't welterweights. Nor are they champions. If they cross the 147-pound limit, they leave their championship belts behind.
Trinidad, who is more compact than de la Hoya, has no intention of leaving. A welterweight is what he is, he says, and what he plans to stay throughout his boxing life.
But with Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis now having resolved their grievances, a Trinidad-de la Hoya fight is precisely what the public wants to see. The solution may be for de la Hoya to borrow a page from the book of another welterweight title-holder, Walker Smith Jr., known to the public as Sugar Ray Robinson.
Sugar Ray was 26 when he won the one and only welterweight title by taking a 15-round decision from Tommy Bell here in 1946 - his 16th bout that year.
Robinson stood 5 feet 111/2 inches in his stocking feet. Like Hearns and de la Hoya, he eventually outgrew the welterweight division. By 1949, when he beat Kid Gavilan among others, he was battling to make the weight limit. Within a year, he was losing the war.
There were only eight weight classes in those days. There were no "junior" or "super" divisions. Once you outgrew the welterweight class, the next step up was the middleweight division, with its limit of 160 pounds. There was no such thing as a WBC, WBA or IBF welterweight champion. There was one world, and New York was its headquarters. A glorified hoodlum named James J. Norris was its czar. But in 1950, Pennsylvania defected. It began recognizing its own "champions of the world."
Unable to make the welterweight limit, Robinson eased into the middleweight ranks by defeating one Robert Villemain in Philadelphia on June 5, 1950, thus becoming the first "Pennsylvania World Middleweight champion." He still was the welterweight champion, in theory at least. But since he weighed nearly 160 pounds, he could not defend that title.
And yet he did, one last time on Aug. 9, 1950, in Jersey City, N.J.
The fight was a charity fund-raiser. Robinson owed the promoter a favor.
"I'll do it on one condition," he said. "I weigh-in in the dark."
The state's ring commissioners could be talked into shutting their eyes when Sugar Ray stepped on the scales, the promoter explained. The opponent, Charlie Fusari, a veteran pug from upstate New York, would weigh in first and be hustled away before Robinson even arrived. Only Fusari's manager would be in on the deal.
"And he's going along with it?" Robinson asked.
"On one condition. His guy gets to go the full 15 rounds. You give your word you won't knock him out."
For the sake of sweet charity, Sugar Ray went along with the deal.
After the fifth round, Fusari returned to his corner full of himself. "This guy is nothin'," he announced. "He don't hit that hard. I'm gonna get him outta there . . . "
Fusari's manager, who was also his cornerman, paled. "Don't slug it out with him," he commanded. "You're out-boxing him. Just keep on boxing. Stick and move. Use the jab."
"I know I can knock him out," Fusari insisted.
"I don't want you takin' no chances," the manager screamed. "You're doin' beautiful. Just keep boxing. You wanna try knockin' him out in the rematch, go right ahead."
So Robinson won by decision, retraining the welterweight crown, which he never defended again. He later described it to friends as his toughest fight.
"I fought 30 rounds that night," he said. "Fifteen for me and 15 for him."
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