It's 62 years since Don Cockell stepped into the trenches with one of the hardest hitting, toughest champion s in history. He lasted nine rounds with rocky throwing everything at him. Whilst he never came close to beating Rock he put up a brave showing, enduring every punch in and out of the book given by marciano. It wasn't the most successful attempt by a British heavy for the title but I'm sure it was nt the worse. Cockell was basically a blown up light heavy that lasted nine rounds against a whirlwind called marciano. Iyo how do you rate dons attempt compared to other British heavy weight title challenge s?
He did show great courage, a lot of heavy s would have called it quits with rock throwing at them. When you look look at some of the British 'attempts' at a heavy weight belt, Cockell s comes across as brave and sincere. David haye and Brian London take note.
I met him once, he was a paint rep looking for sales, ,my then wife was working for a local firm and he came in . The boss was a boxing fan and introduced her to him, she phoned me, and I went to have quick chat.He was a very nice man. He said Marciano essentially finished him as a fighter.,he never mentioned all the fouls he received or pretended he was ever going to win that fight.
Really? Wow good little story mcvey. It bears out what I've read about Don, that basically he was a decent guy and he knew he was never going to beat marciano. But he took his lumps which is more than u can say about so many heavy challenges. I actually felt for Cockell in that fight, he was in against one of the most ferocious, hard hitting, iron chinned champs in history.
