By Terence Dooley

It is not enough for the boxing fan to follow the sport on a fight-by-fight basis.  We tend to collect fights in general; we also collect specific fights relating to certain fighters in particular.  The ones we collect in general are kept close to hand, to be used when research or renewed interest dictates.  The ones we collect in particular are kept constantly to hand.  Stylistic masters, the punchers we like to watch and the pressure masters.  If you are like me your interest will zoom in on certain fighters, men who seem to compliment one another on many levels.

Watching Randolph Turpin fight nags at my imagination, the skills on offer are pretty memorable, Turpin had a distinct boxing style, but there is something else.

When watching a favoured fighter imagination kicks in somewhere in the background, running through all the styles and body shapes you have seen, then bringing the ones most like the fighter you are watching to the fore. 

For example you watch Tommy Hearns, something about that sinewy boxing style calls to your mind the likes of Mark Breland (minus Hearns’ power) or, more recently, Kingsley Ikeke; three boxers, with Hearns being the exemplar, who all box in a broadly generic style.

After a while I could not watch Turpin fight without recalling to my mind the image of Michael Watson.  Stylistically they are, again, broadly generic, doing most things well, and boxing with a style that made use of their ample shoulders. 

Turpin would roll and block with his shoulders, covering his chest with his arms and generally presenting a hard target to hit.  Watson, most memorably in his signature win over Nigel Benn, would put on the earmuffs, using his shoulders to keep his body shape strong.

Physically there is a definitive lineage between the two, the imagination overlaps them for a rude comparison, and they both echo certain strengths of structure.  Turpin, who was one of the first to utilise weightlifting to aid his boxing, was an impressive physical specimen, a mini Kenny Norton.  Watson always looked like a man who had put himself through the mill in order to present his foe with an imposing physique; coat hanger shoulders, all sinew and inner-steel.

Imagination then drifts beyond the boxing ring, running through the biographies of the fighters, looking for further links between the two, perhaps in the expectation that a physiological correspondence suggests a psychological kinship.

Turpin’s physical strength is rendered still more impressive when you consider that the young Randolph contracted pneumonia in both lungs.  A childhood incident, a near drowning that left Randolph partially deaf in one ear, served to compound the physical barriers Turpin had to overcome.

Yet overcome them he did.  Turpin followed his brother Dick, the first black British Champion, into the professional code after Randolph himself had made history, becoming the youngest, and first black, ABA title holder. 

Things went well early in his professional career, then a setback came against the backdrop of a troubled personal life, his marriage ended and he consequently had to give up custody of his son, with this raging in his personal life, Turpin was dropped and stopped by Jean Stock on route to a fifth round loss.

All this would pass.  As Turpin climbed the ranks, British, Commonwealth and European titles, he imposed himself physically on his opponents, and the sport of boxing. 

In 1951 Turpin fought the living legend Sugar Ray Robinson for the middleweight title at London’s Earls Court.  Some say Ray was jaded by the exertions of his European tour.  In reality, Turpin out-fought Robinson, imposing himself physically.  This industry was rewarded; Turpin became middleweight Champion of the world at a time when the tag did not need a lengthy preamble. 

Turpin went ahead with a stipulated rematch, this time travelling to America to meet Robinson on his own turf.  Again Turpin showed that he belonged in the ring with Robinson, cutting the Sugarman and generally being a nuisance to him. 

With the cut threatening to end the fight in favour of Turpin, Robinson exploded a right hand onto the chin of the Englishman, flooring Randolph heavily.  Upon rising, Turpin adopted his high shoulder rolling defence.  However, referee Ruby Goldstein was a little too hasty in jumping in to stop the fight in the tenth round.  Despite this loss it seemed that Randolph was destined to return to this level again.

It was not to be.  One more shot at the title arrived, against Bobo Olsen, only for Turpin to fall apart; this against the backdrop of further personal problems as an old flame surfaced shortly before the fight.  There were other achievements after this points defeat, a British and Commonwealth light-heavyweight title win in 1955, but it was a classic case of a fighter hitting the top only to find fate conspiring to prevent him from staying there.  

Upon retirement this fighter, so strong and bullish in the ring, found that his investments had not reaped the benefits he had hoped they would, a story that unites far more fighters than styles do.  With his ring career earnings evaporating he resorted to wrestling, he also worked in a scrap yard, a metaphorically bitter place for a former fighter to end up. 

Bankruptcy led to an ill-advised comeback, one curtailed by eye problems.  He hung his gloves up for good in 1964.  With drama a prevalent backdrop in his life, Turpin committed suicide in 1966, too young to be gone but gone nonetheless at 37.

It would be grisly, not to say distasteful, to go into the personal details surrounding his death, the suicide speaks for itself, and of his troubles. 

Perhaps when an active fighter Turpin could put all his weal and woe to one side in order to continue with the business of fighting.  A shy child said to have become a shy man whose physical strength belied his sensitivity.  His brother Jack spoke to me about Randolph’s natural affinity with children, a trait he shared with Sonny Liston. 

Many things could have contributed to the suicide of Turpin, one of them may have been the displacement he felt after his boxing career ended, his physical strength not quite augmenting the mental anguish he must have been feeling around the time of his death.

Then you have his Randolph’s physical doppelganger, Michael Watson.  Watson came confidently into the sport of boxing.  However, this strength of mind received a knock in his seventh fight as he lost on points to James Cook in 1986. 

His finest moment came in 1989 when he defused then destroyed Nigel Benn.  Watson was, seemingly, on his way to big things but the boxer would only have six more fights after the Benn victory, two of those fights, for differing reasons, being two of the toughest fights to have ever been seen in a British ring.

Firstly, a world title fight was signed against an acknowledged title holder in Mike McCallum.  Twice postponed the fight itself turned out to be a brutal affair as McCallum broke down the aggressive Watson, who was hoping to overwhelm the older man, over eleven painful rounds.

Subsequently, at Earls Court in 1991, Watson was given another chance at a middleweight title, as he took on the flamboyant Chris Eubank for the WBO bauble.  Somewhat of an anticlimax the bout itself resulted in a close decision win for Eubank, public opinion, though, decreed Watson the moral victor, a rematch was inevitable.

By this point Watson faced a Hobson’s choice, in order to push Eubank to defeat he would have to utterly adopt the aggressive stance of the McCallum bout, therefore putting himself in that excruciating spot he had occupied in the clash with Mike. 

With his decision made, Watson showed inconceivable strength of will in coming forward for round after round in the epic rematch with Eubank, fought at White Hart Lane.  It remains a heroic performance.  Watson, like Turpin, was a man who would not be denied. It took an equally momentous effort from Eubank to draw the fight to a conclusion; he put Watson down heavily in the eleventh before forcing the referee to intervene in round twelve.  As was the case with Turpin’s suicide the analysis is irrelevant, Watson sustained a brain injury in the fight and spent a significant period in hospital.  With the end of the fight came the end of Watson’s career, and the start of his real battle.

Turpin, like Watson physically and mentally a behemoth in the boxing ring, had found that a post-boxing life is hard, the grinding banality of a post-boxing life possibly played a part in his destiny.  As most boxers find, always too late, Turpin needed boxing, it played a fundamental role in his adult life and this is a fact not to be overlooked.  Many boxers enter the sport as young men, becoming true adults during their time in the sport.  They then come out to a world they had left as boys and returned to as men, leading to the kind of displacement a soldier must feel upon leaving the army. 

Post-boxing life ground Randolph down; Watson did not have that luxury.  There were six brain operations followed by a 40-day coma, upon returning from his coma Michael was told he might never walk again.

His reaction to the news about his potential problems led Watson to issue a ‘no’, bringing about a remarkable fight-back that was topped when completing the London marathon in 2003.  Amongst his rewards for that feat came the recompense that may have struck him most of all, middleweight great Marvin Hagler spoke of Watson as an ‘inspiration’, effectively, with this statement, the ‘peoples Champion’ became the ‘Champion of Champions’. 

In this writers imagination the names Watson and Turpin follow one another in many ways.  Stylistically, physiologically, and in the sense that both men trod a path tinged with pain.  Both men left boxing behind them to face a hard life beyond the ropes, Watson was left with something to fight for, the physical fighter retired and the mental fighter stepped forward, he has been immense since his forced retirement.  His strength, his God (the son of whom also spent 40-days locked within himself) and his will to overcome shone through in the end. 

On Randolph’s part it would seem that the void could not be filled after his boxing career was over.  For the modern reader Turpin’s story is akin to a badly faded photo of relatives you have never met, there is that distance between us.  When thinking of him the phrase uttered by the man he defeated comes to the forefront of the mind.  Sugar Ray Robinson, during his final retirement, finding out that the money was gone, looked around a sparse room and stated: “It was not supposed to end this way for me”.

Turpin and Watson, in the final analysis, represent two reflections of the double-edged sword of boxing.  Watson was given, or honed, great gifts of determination through his participation in the sport, boxing gave him strength that most people would not posses.  On the other hand it also robbed him of aspects of his health that us spectators take for granted.  His story is one of a determination that crosses all boundaries.

On the other hand, Turpin represents a singular image of achievement in the sport, the British fighter who beat the best fighter on the planet at that time.  Boxing proved such a rich elixir for Randolph that he could not adapt well to post-boxing life.  Turpin’s story, however, furnishes us with an example of in-ring achievement that lasts beyond his untimely death, a shining example of the fairytale that boxing can be.  Of the satisfaction it can bring.  A life that was half as long but twice as strong as many lives lived.