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Proud Lawrence ("Tuff") Fullmer taught his muscular son everything he had learned from a short and undistinguished career in the ring (two younger brothers are also learning). Then Tuff turned Gene over to Marv Jenson, a local mink rancher, who had developed the once-promising heavyweight Rex Layne. Young Gene was the kind of willing worker that Jenson had always wanted. Out of high school, he had a job as an apprentice welder, in the repair shop at Kennecott Copper's great open-pit mine, but he still had the energy to get up at five o'clock every morning and put in three to four miles of roadwork. He also worked out daily in Jenson's gym. After a year-long layoff to practice a different kind of fighting in Korea, Gene got his pro career under way in earnest. He came to New York last week, winner of 37 out of 40 fights, 20 by knockouts.
Just getting a crack at Sugar Ray was the toughest scrap of all. Jenson had to settle for 12½% of the gate, or $20.915. Robinson pocketed $78,190 of the gate receipts, plus $60,000 of the TV and radio income, of which Fullmer got none.
For Fullmer, his wife Dolores and his five-month-old daughter Kaye, there will now be some bigger payoffs. The new champion is not an exciting fighter or remotely as great as the one he succeeded. But he promises to be a diligent one, and there ought to be some lively Donnybrooks in the middleweight division before Gene Fullmer runs into anyone tough and smart enough to dethrone him.