48 years ago today: Muhammad Ali vs. Jean-Pierre Coopman

Like it was yesterday. He lit up my youth. Ali, not Cooperman.

 

I had the lion of Flounders ahead 3-2 in rounds . Due to his aggression & ring smarts.

 

Muhammad Ali had title defenses against fighters who didn't belong in the ring with him, fighters such as Jean-Pierre Coopman, Richard Dunn and Alfredo Evangelista. But such title defenses took place because the major American television networks were willing to pay a lot of money to show such farces on the tube.

- Chuck Johnston

 

Dang, you got me excited to go look up who Rafael Limon fought on the undercard, haha.

It featured Wilfredo Gomez, Jimmy Young (beat Jose ‘King’ Roman), Alfredo Escalera in a title defense and the debut of one Ossie ‘Jaws’ Ocasio.

 

Ali winding up his right over and over animated against Richard Dunn was nothing but good TV LOLOLOL-He was still wildley winding the right arm when the fite was actually over!!

 

George Kanter was Coopman representative in the US. Here's his recollection of the weeks leading to the fight:

"I went back to Belgium to see Coopman’s manager. He owned a barber shop in the small country town where Jean-Pierre lived. And he was so excited he could hardly talk, because his fighter was going to fight the great Muhammad Ali. Finally I told him, ‘Look, calm down; let’s talk money.’ And the guy said to me, ‘It’s such an honor to fight Muhammad Ali, we would fight him for nothing.’ I said, ‘Well, don’t tell the promoter that, because if you do, that’s exactly what you’ll be fighting for.’ So we agreed on a purse, and there was a press conference to announce the fight at one of the New York hotels. Coopman arrived; I went to the airport to get him. I figured, this is going to be a tough sell; I have to do something to build the fighter. And it occurred to me, Belgium is cut up into three parts. There’s Flanders, there’s Brussels, and there’s the Walloon country. Coopman was from Flanders, and on their flag—it’s a yellow flag with a lion on it—I said to myself, ‘Well, this is the obvious thing; well call him the Lion of Flanders.’

“So we had the press conference, and one of the main problems was, Coopman was so in awe of Ali and so pleased to meet him that he wanted to kiss him all the time. And Ali was saying, ‘Get away from me. How am I ever gonna get mad at this guy?’ I kept close to Coopman, because I saw he wasn’t, as they say, too hep. But at one point, I was taken aside by a reporter and Coopman was left to the other newspapermen. And the next thing I heard was someone asking him, ‘Why are you called the Lion of Flanders?’ And Coopman answered, ‘I don’t know. Mr. Kanter just told me that was my name.’

[...]

“On the night of the fight, I was in Ali’s dressing room watching his hands being taped. Then I went back to Coopman’s dressing room. Jean-Pierre had his wife in his arms, and they were drinking champagne. This was before the fight. I asked, ‘What’s going on here? Am I in a house of ill repute, or is this a boxer’s dressing room?’ But that’s how it was. Coopman had quite a bit of champagne before the fight, and then they gave him champagne between rounds. He was the happiest loser I ever saw.

 

Jack Dempsey was in Puerto Rico for the fight and Ali told Jack as he was leaving the ring, "You're the greatest." Dempsey said, "But Muhammad, you always said you're the greatest." Ali said "That's all bull****." Nice story.

 

Great story!

The legendary 70s aura.

 

I kind of doubt that those 1,000 Flemish fans (if indeed there were that many — I suspect a publicist supplied SI with a made-up number, surely they didn’t have to produce passports at the ticket counter to prove their origin lol) all thought their man would win.

More likely it was a chance for a getaway to an exotic location across the ocean to see a legend in action (Ali, not Coopman haha) against their countrymen in probably the biggest athletic event involving one of their people likely to take place in their lifetimes. It was an excuse for an excursion.

I’ve been to many football games where a few thousand fans of a small school like Chattanooga show up to play a powerhouse by Alabama. Trust me, they aren’t all sitting there saying ‘I had to be here when we shocked the world’ — no, it’s a chance to go to see big-time college football in a far bigger setting than their team normally plays, so why not go?

 

This is classic ‘enjoy the ride’ in action.

Guy knew his chances. He could have trained like Rocky and probably gotten the same result. I’m sure Ron Stander put everything into his fight with Joe Frazier and ended up with no happier result.

Hey, JPC probably drank in every moment of this once-in-a-lifetime event and made sure to smell the roses (and have some nice champagne while he was at it). Why not?

Fly me first-class to the Olympics to race Usain Bolt, and I’ll run the fastest 100 meters I can when the race starts (and the slowest in recorded history, most likely) but I’m going to make more of the experience of being at the Olympics than I am killing myself for a race I cannot win.