I think there is some sort of foul language sensor in place that is editing part of Don's last name .. Anyway, an interesting read ..
Another example of why I'm not keen on bud Schubergs early boxing writing. Don kockell took a beating so what? Everybody took a beating from Marciano. There is no reason to run don down further. Kockell "not much of a fighter" a "tub of lard" etc etc. "Hand picked". The notion that there is a history of British only celebrating brave mediocre losing fighters since prize ring days was unfounded. In fact The tone of the article is entirely anti British too. The fact that kockell beat up enough American contenders to earn his place as the worlds #2 was not allowed to get in the way of the slant Budd wanted to misinform the reader with -That kockell was some kind of unqualified victim from some irelivent ancient corner of the world that dosnt understand the sport it actually gave to America.
Kockell was certainly Maricano's most lesser regarded title opponent, but there were more fair opinions of him in the American press. http://fultonhistory.com/newspaper ... NY Gazette 1954 May-Jun Grayscale - 0594.pdf
The interesting thing is that Sports Illustrated and it's writers were quite bullish on Marciano for the time .. the magazine was brand new and he was the current champ and they were not dripping for nostalgia ... http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1130215/index.htm
SI was pushing for Moore/Maricano for some time, they eventually got it.All current writers are hard on their current era. You'll find identical articles regarding Ali, Holmes, Holyfield, Tyson..etc, why after all these years are you still hung up on one in particular.
I'm not at all .. I just respond to others posts .. I enjoy the early heavyweights .. the Dempsey years .. the Louis years and all after .. my point above was that SI was very pro-Marciano not critical ..
Lesser regarded but good enough to last as long as Archie Moore did against Marciano. Don was obviously much better than he looked and a lot better than a lot of the press let on.
