Was Henry Cooper actually ahead on points vs Muhammad Ali ?

In the May 21 1966 title defense for Muhammad Ali against Henry Cooper, like I said, Henry did force the action early. Ali was weary of that left hook which sat him down on June 18 1963, whenever Cooper would throw it, Ali would grab that left arm. When Ali threw that chopping right hand in round 6, the blood began to pour like torrential rain. I remember it was revealed post fight that it took 14 sutures to close the wound above his eyebrows.

 

Angelo did his job. Like I said, Cooper never had a problem with it. It's what you pay your corner for.
As regards the glove, yeah, massive wives tale. Got Muhammad another few seconds, to listen to some, you'd think it was half an hour. Henry always said it made no difference.

 

Anyone have a contemporary copy of the BBBC rulebook at the time?

Does it spell out that it’s a DQ offense?

And, for that matter, do we know that the officials told the Americans that smelling salts weren’t allowed?

Regardless, it’s on the officials to know and enforce the rules. If they failed to do so that’s not on Ali or his corner. It’s on the BBBC.

 

That fight took place on June 18 1963.

 

We don’t know, just as we don’t know it would have been a DQ. Might have been a fine and had their corner licenses pulled.

We’ve had UK fighters fail PED tests and not face a whiff of punishment from the BBBC, and their rules don’t allow those, so I don’t think we can assume anything.

 

It’s true, in so far as I have read, Cooper didn’t hold a grudge re the smelling salts and he did say he would’ve expected his corner to administer same if necessary - that tells me his corner would’ve had salts on hand at the very least - likely most if not all corners would have it on hand just in case - worth the risk if it means the difference between your fighter losing and surviving.

The mere administering of salts might be read as a good indicator as to how hurt a fighter is. I remember Frazier being clearly administered same - I think after round 14, before the fight was stopped. If not that round, then maybe round 13.

Salts were prohibited in the UK, but my reading also tells me that in the event that salts were used, the corner would merely be warned and told not to do it again - the banning of salts was meant to prevent the temporary and illusory “wake up” of otherwise unviable fighters, who, after the short effects of the salts, would be that much more prone to serious injury.

As an anecdote, Coopee himself had the “extra” time between rounds as high as 3-5 minutes - but Henry was just playing it off as a good yarn - not a lie. For Dundee, it serves as nice “sell” job for his savvy as a cornerman - no point highlighting his worsening of the tear if it only bought a mere 4 seconds - which is all it did “buy” - and it probably didn’t even buy that - I’m sure some rounds could start several secs late due to happenstance anyway.

My question has always been - where it exactly was the tear? - and could the orig. tear served to have cut Henry’s skin - and the widened tear even more so? My understanding is that the gloves were ultimately NOT replaced.

Many say Ali was lucky to get caught near the end of the round and that the ropes broke his fall. In some ways those factors are exactly WHY Ali got caught - relaxing toward the end of the and backing to the ropes to avoid Henry’s left hook - with Ali simply have no more room to back up.

Legal or not, take out the smelling salts. Let’s face it, Ali was pretty screwed up after the KD - and it looked like they gave Ali at least a double dose of the salts - did it help him survive the crucial opening moments of the next round when he might otherwise have been still quite hurt?

 

I've often seen this claim made that Clay could or should have been disqualified for using smelling salts. The truth is, a single breach of a little-known local rule isn't grounds for disqualification. When Karl Mildenberger used them in his own meeting with Cooper 5 years later, the Evening Standard just reported that:

Incidentally, those smelling salts - permissible under European rules but not under ours - brought about a noisy argument near the Mildenberger corner. Board of Control officials read the riot act, and the little brown bottle disappeared.

Ironically a few rounds later Mildenberger butted his way to a DQ anyway.

https://pasteboard.co/Wba63QCDtCJD.jpg

 

Yeah, everything with Ali are give such big proportions on this board. I might recheck, but I think the ref was looking directly at Ali's corner when he was given the salts and the commentators mentioned it without a hint of controversy. You'd expect a lot more reaction from both the commentators and the ref if it was grounds for a DQ or even NC. Even more so after the fight, but all the talk was bout the glove.

EDIT: The British commentator doesn't mention it, but the ref comes overs just as the have given it to Ali.

 

This was covered in another thread and someone did produce a newspaper clipping from the day/ week after the fight and it was news in Britain that Ali had broken the rules. So it did strike up some controversy in the moment and is not some issue taken out of context 50 years later.
I would think the boxer would be Dq’d being aided in recovery is a no no. James J Jeffries technically lost by DQ because his corner assisted him to his feet. Maybe not for Ali but I would think at worse it would be a no contest. I mean you floor your opponent hard and his corner gives him a stimulant to recover??

 

Dundee admitted that he made a small split in Ali's glove a little bigger and bought Ali some time after he was dropped by Cooper in June 1963. It's on You tube....

 

Dundee could be a story teller. But I give him the benefit of the doubt but thing is the time between the rounds unedited I think is only an additional 8 seconds or something

 

Felt like Cooper was very competitive both times even in the 1966 fight but it seemed like he was quite a bleeder which costed him.

 

Yep blood loss, not some cartoon prediction, cleavage or “playing around” Sir Cooper was taking him to the sword… wish it had have been a full length fight.