¶ Three times before Sugar Ray Robinson had won back his middleweight championship in rematches, but the greatest craftsman of his day was only a floundering 40-year-old as he tried to regain the comic-opera title of New York and Massachusetts from a pug named Paul Pender. After losing a split decision in Boston, even the Sugar seemed to feel he was finished: "I just didn't have what it takes. I didn't do nothing. I lost."
¶ Reviled by home-town sportswriters and nerve weary with defeat, Manager Billy Jurges first was ordered by doctors to take an extended rest, then was fired by...