Why the lies about henry cooper?

The second fight was the real arse-kicking IIRC.

 

cooper was no bum,but it's true that he went from respectibility to hero worship as a result of that punch,and to be fair he was long lived and was still taking on and beating the best in europe up until the age of 37.at the very top world level he was found wanting and was ko'd by guys like patterson,johannsen and folley,although his best win was in his first fight with a prime folley when he beat him on points,no mean feat.the left hook was a genuine lethal weapon though as he was a turned around southpaw,and even for his era he wasn't the biggest heavy around mainly fighting between 13 and 13 and a half stone.

 

As for the other myth: Cooper was always unlucky losing fights by cuts, it should be noted Cooper only lost to Ali/Clay on cuts after 1958, his main problem was getting knocked out!

But look, Sir 'enry was a icon of the era in Britain, seemingly a fantastic fella, who could spin a story or two. Anyone who knows about the sport knows Cooper is merely making up the story, anyone who only has a passing interest in the sport, falls for the stories.

And good on Sir 'enry for being able to make the most out of his pretty fine career. This is a man who may only be remembered by the mainstream for that punch, but I will try to remember him as the man who outpointed the fearsome Zora Foley.

 

The film shows that Cooper possessed a world-class left hook and he had to be a good boxer to land it against Ali.

 

Whats notable was that smaller heavyweights like Cooper and
Doug Jones were able to hit Ali, whereas the larger heavyweights
were too slow.

Thats why I think that the 1930s-1950s heavyweights would have
given Ali a tough(er) time.

Ali could be hit by a quick handed heavyweight with a good left
hook like Jersey Joe Walcott. Not saying that Walcott (or Ezzard
Charles) would have beaten Ali, but they would have been a bit
competitive.

Grebfan9
www.firstroundboxing.com

 

2 things:

1) Ali only got 3 extra seconds to recover (I think).

2) Cooper SHOULD have won the fight. While Ali didn't get that much extra time to recover - the smelling salts used for him were BLATANTLY illegal. How, exactly, did no-one pick up on that?