Sugar Ray Robinson was enjoying his reign as welterweight champion of the world in the summer of 1946, when he signed to fight L.A. fighter Jimmy Doyle. Training was nothing out of norm for Ray, with a morning 5 mile run followed by an afternoon of bag work, sparring and jumping rope.
But something extraordinary happened the evening before the June 25th bout in Cleveland, Ohio. Sugar Ray dreamt that he hit Doyle with a left hook in their fight, and his opponent died as a result. Disturbed from the dream, Ray met with both a priest and a minister who tried to calm him down, saying it was just a dream. Reluctantly Robinson agreed to go on with the fight, but imagine his horror when he hit Doyle with a left hook in the 8th round, dropping his opponent. Doyle would in fact succumb to his head injuries, and Ray’s horrific premonition was in fact a reality. Jimmy Doyle was dead,
Ray said that his heart for boxing died that summer night in Cleveland. Although his career continued for many years after, his enjoyment for boxing was gone, and it was strictly business. Boxing proved to be a brutal reality that night, in a sport that was never known as a game.
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