His financial problems worsened after his retirement in 1962 and he turned to wrestling and unlicensed boxing as well as driving a truck through the streets of his hometown, Leamington Spa. A poorly educated, barely literate and financially naive man, Turpin struggled to come to terms with the anticlimax of his brief stay at the top. This marked a dramatic decline in Turpin's fortunes, he lost a fight for the vacant middleweight championship two years later (after Robinson's retirement) and never had another shot at the title. Alas this is what happened and the fight was stopped and Turpin had the unusual distinction of having what remains to this day the shortest reign in boxing history. This could be misconstrued as his helplessness and inability to fight back. Turpin was an unorthodox fighter, instead of retaliating when under fire he would concentrate his efforts on making his opponent miss. In the 10th round he went after Turpin in desperation. Robinson had a badly cut eye that meant the fight was likely to be stopped at any moment. The rematch was closer but Turpin proved that the first fight was no fluke. The infamous return clause ensured that Turpin had to do it all over again just 64 days later in New York. Maybe the reason why this occasion has been so sadly forgotten is the events that happened after it. Turpin completely dominated this fight from start to finish and looked every inch a world-class fighter. In addition, this was not a case of the home judges favouring 'their boy', the referee was the only judge that night and his decision was fully justified. It happened after the Second World War at a time of low national morale and the joy that greeted Turpin's triumph was compared to the VE celebrations.
I have had the pleasure of watching this fight that took place more than 25 years before I was born and I have only read about the effect its result had on an entire country. This is a forgotten event where a forgotten man reached a peak that few sportsmen could even dream of climbing. But the greatest moment in British boxing without a shadow of a doubt was when Randolph Turpin defeated Sugar Ray Robinson, probably the greatest fighter ever, to become middleweight champion of the world. Some people may think that I'm referring to Henry Cooper knocking down Cassius Clay (Cooper lost in the following round). It's a terrible shame that the greatest ever moment in British boxing did not appear anywhere in the top 100. Recently on UK television, there was a poll for the 100 greatest sporting moments.
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