On Liston: We don't want to meet this geezer Liston walking down the street, never mind in the ring. Jim Wicks, Cooper's manager.
Cooper's manager also said, If we see Liston walking down the street, we quickly walk the the opposite way.
Can't blame him either Henry was an average heavy, who cut to ribbons and did not have the best chin. He also was small. The story about the 3 extra minutes recovery time for clay with the cut glove, where they had to go and get a new glove etc etc afetr the kd is a complete fallacy. Boxing news said the interbval was timed at 1m 6 seconds and the glove was not changed.
jim wicks also said that liston was too ugly for cooper to fight . which is how cooper would have looked had he got in the ring with the bear !!
There's film of the break between rounds, I've seen it on tv. A couple of seconds over, no glove slashing, no gove replacing. Its a good story but it's not true, I cant believe so many people still believe it.
It's become one of the great myths of boxing ,I was at that fight & if the break between rounds had been much longer than normal we would have noticed & if as has been said a new glove had been brought from the dressing room it would have taken more than five minutes. the truth is if Cooper had put Casius down earlyier in the round he may well have stopped him but he did'nt Cas was in peek condition & recoved well during the break & knew then that he could not take any chances with Henry & stopped him in the next round and so the myth was born Henry went on to make a very good living off the back of a fight he lost
& he also had a great left hook a ton of heart & is one of the most if not most beloved British Heavyweights ever!
How many great left hooks did he throw in reality ? If it was so great how did Johannsen and Patterson takeit so well ? Or Bugner ..... etc etc etc He was / is loved by the British public. A huge portion of that comes down to the story he was cheated against Clay which did not happen. Everyone who steps in the ring has heart, but his chin was poor and we was beaten whenever he stepped up in reality.
To be fair I don't think he even landed his left hook on Patterson/Johansson. He did flatten Joe Erskine with a series of left hooks: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-2op2gXusM Cooper was a solid contender in my opinion, Ali had a lot of respect for him (after the fight). :good
