Spinks dominates and humiliates Cooper before finishing him off with an emphatic KO. Spinks shows more class then Clay ever could and helps Cooper back to his feet, but Cooper never fights again all the same and never learns to cope with the loss and falls into a deep depression
if leon shows up in the dressing room with an 8 ball in his pocket and a bottle hid .. he's getting jaw jacked ...but if leon shows up ready too go he's mauling coop and stopping him around the 7th on cuts .. after dropping him 3 times .. leon had enough stroke to put coop down but he isn't like jaw jacking him ..coops gonna keep getting up till his face can't anymore ... leon 7th round tko
The Cooper of 63 v the Spinks of 78 ? I have to say, Henry's got a chance here. The night of the first Ali fight, Henry was just past his 29th birthday and was on a great roll. He'd been British Champion for four years and had only lost to Zora Folley during that time. He had even avenged that defeat, albeit in a very hard fight. He had learned to combine craft with power and set his big left hook up beautifully. Great "Show one, throw one" stuff. Feint, read the reaction, then let the shot go. Against this, Leon had had eight fights, his best result being a draw against Scott LeDoux. He was energetic and hungry with a busy, swarming style but with little finesse or real power. And now look at the versions of Ali they fought. Ali was 21 when Cooper fought him. Lightning fast and with a style no one had seen on a Heavyweight. Despite this, Henry tagged and really hurt him. He was saved by the bell and as we were to learn, Ali had an all time great chin. Spinks was up against an old, overweight and already very poorly man. Ali barely threw a punch in that fight. Spinks couldn't drop him and had to go the whole fifteen. I reckon the peak Cooper would knocked holes in Ali that night. Cooper was at his beat against open types who marched in and hooked. He could counter with his excellent jab or hook with them. You wouldn't really want to hook with Henry unless your name was Frazier or Quarry. Sometime in the first six, Leon's going to make a mistake or leave a gap and that, ladies and gentlemen, is that.
Well it was Folley who avenged his defeat to Henry. Cooper had won a bit of a controversial decision in the 1st fight Folley returned to London for the 2nd fight and knocked Henry out in the 2nd round.
The likely conclusion is that Leon busts up that scar tissue and wins by mid-round TKO. ‘Enery was something with that ‘ammer of a ‘ook, but he was, alas, a bleeder.
Ah, thanks Cecil. I should probably have Boxrec open typing comments on here. It's fun to challenge the memory though.
im not sure Spinks beats a lot of great fighters that night, I think a lot of great heavyweights could’ve tko’d that Ali.
