Henry Cooper

by Robert Edwards

  The damage by Cassius to the left eyebrow had been horrendous and took several months to heal properly. The difficulty was simple: surgical stitching repaired the outer surface, whereas the inner damage merely knitted together to form hard subcutaneous scar tissue. If another punch landed on the healed outer wound, the encysted scar tissue underneath acted as an anvil. Something would have to be done (and would be, later on) but meanwhile Henry went about his usual routine, training in the gym above the Thomas à Becket, downing his unique cocktail and lunching in the West End, as Wicks proudly paraded his boy about.

  On 24 February 1964 he had his third and final encounter with Brian London. Defending his British title was one thing, but there was a second outright Lonsdale belt at stake, too, as well as the European title, which had fallen vacant on the retirement of Ingemar Johansson. The fight was hard but nowhere near as remorseless as their previous effort. The two men were actually on much better terms than they had been before Henry had both firmly satisfied Cooper family honour in 1959 and seized the title for the first time. Henry won on points after a tiring but not particularly punishing 15 rounds. At one stage the crowd even slow hand-clapped; they were looking for the sort of fireworks that had lit up the Wembley football arena against Clay but it was simply not to be. Happily, the left eyebrow repair remained more or less intact this time.

  An example of the high-handedness of the Board of Control had popped up literally minutes before the fight with London. Quite arbitrarily it had been decided, but not announced, that the amount of protective tape a boxer wears under the glove would be more than halved. This was dangerous for two reasons. Firstly, when heavyweights hit each other – and you have to be there to grasp the sheer power behind the punches – the impact of the blow will serve to spread the knuckle laterally and invariably damage the joint. Bursitis is often the result. Secondly, the risk to the opponent is correspondingly increased. When Holland saw the amount of tape provided he protested and Wicks backed him up, as did Harry Levene, for whom the cancellation of the fight meant financial disaster. Quite calmly, the Board of Control officials, Onslow Fane and Teddy Waltham, reversed the decision and issued Holland with more tape. It wasn’t enough, as it transpired, as Henry damaged his left hand on London’s head during the fight.

  But, despite the disappointment of the Clay fight and the irritating behaviour of the Board of Control, Henry was now as close to the top of the tree in Europe as he could be. There was trouble in store, however, but it came not from the British regulators this time but the European Boxing Union (EBU). Henry had been challenged for the European title by the hefty Karl Mildenberger and the fight was arranged for 9 September 1964.

  The fight was actually scheduled to take place in Germany because neither Levene nor Solomons was prepared to promote a fight with a German boxer at that time and the simple truth was that, as a result of the British promoters’ reluctance, their German counterparts invariably bid less, despite the fact that the challenger was a countryman of theirs. Even though it was a mandatory defence, Henry would still have to pay Wicks his 25 per cent but now out of a much smaller pie. He was now commanding at least £20,000 a fight at home, whereas his share of any European championship purse would be less than half that.

  But a few weeks before the fight Henry’s left elbow started to give him trouble and the two specialists he consulted advised a fortnight’s complete rest. Obviously a boxer in training for a fight simply cannot rest and, therefore, Wicks requested that the fight be postponed. Unsurprisingly, the EBU refused and Henry was unceremoniously stripped of the title he had won from London. He used the time to do as the specialists had ordered.

  Unwisely, Henry accepted a fight as a late substitute in a match against Roger Rischer at the Albert Hall in November. It was a match hastily arranged by Mike Barrett. The main event had been originally intended to be a lightweight fight but Dave Charnley, who was a very big draw indeed, was unwell. Henry, still smarting from the EBU’s decision, only had a fortnight’s notice for the match. Winter training was never his particularly strong point and he paid the price for his hasty preparation. ‘If anyone asks me which fight of my career I want to remember least,’ he recalls, ‘then this was it.’

  Roger ‘The Dodger’ Rischer, a black Californian, was experienced, crafty and crude. He even managed to put Henry on the canvas twice in the eighth round. It was a complete mismatch of styles and was not only a particularly tedious fight but did no good to Henry’s reputation. He lost (and clearly) on points; the referee was Harry Gibbs. Henry’s behaviour after the fight was revealing. Interviewed on television he was asked if he agreed with the verdict, and the public waited for the embarrassment of boxing’s traditional ‘we-wuz-robbed’ argument. Of course, they didn’t get it. ‘Oh yes,’ said Henry, apparently relaxed, ‘he was well on top.’

  Henry, despite his frankness with the press, was rather lowered by the outcome of the Rischer fight as well as the behaviour of the EBU, and Albina saw her opportunity to suggest that he might consider retiring. This was, as she told me, less than wise: ‘I did ask him to quit…I remember when Henry was very disillusioned. He told Jim Wicks that I wanted him to stop. Mr. Wicks rang: “Listen, you just look after your house and leave the business to us.” I was quite clear about that message – you mind your Ps and Qs and get on with your work.’

  ‘Woman, mind your house, woman, mind your place,’ were the clear and perhaps even slightly sinister messages. She refers to Wicks in that rather formal way not, I must point out, because he exercises any particular influence over her even from beyond the grave, but rather more because she has innate Italian courtesy. She never asked Henry to retire again. When he finally did, she felt quite reborn.

  Albina was never part of boxing, had never yet even seen a fight, and the Coopers as a couple did not, as a rule, socialize with other fighters. ‘I could never really became close or friendly with another boxer’s wife,’ she says. ‘I’ve never mixed with them. It’s such a cold sport. I don’t feel there was ever any warmth to it. You can’t get close to someone whose husband is going to fight yours.’

  Likewise, Henry found it quite difficult to spend leisure time with anyone he might have to hit. Retired fighters were different, of course, because they had a wisdom about them that a working boxer always finds valuable, and the ex-boxer is usually keen to impart, but dinner with Brian London, even after their reconciliation? No.

  So, although the Rischer fight was an embarrassing error, both before and during, that winter brought an interesting approach from the Nation of Islam. The subject was a potential rematch between Henry and Muhammad Ali, as the world champion now styled himself. The caller was Malcolm X, displaying that same naivety that would ensure that he was dead by the end of February 1965. He was, despite the avowed hostility of the Nation of Islam to boxing, actually attempting to negotiate a fight.

  Wicks was unmoved. He agreed to a meeting, which took place in Marylebone, but nothing came of it. It was clear to Wicks that Malcolm X knew little of boxing or its commercial imperatives so blandly, but with no particular sense of irony, he referred him to Harry Levene.

  Malcolm X had, until the previous year, been a close friend and associate of Muhammad Ali, but was so no longer, as a power struggle for the soul of the American Black Muslim movement had forced Ali into making choices between Malcolm and the spiritual leader of the movement, Elijah Muhammad. The two men were at loggerheads; Malcolm X had realized that some of the tenets of the movement were frankly absurd and attractive to only the most gullible. Stating this would cost him his life. He was assassinated on 21 February 1965 on the orders of Elijah Muhammad.

  Interestingly, when the Cooper/Ali rematch did take place in 1966, Wicks received a request for a commission from the Nation; again, he referred them to Levene and that, predictably enough, was that.

  Of course, Henry was extremely interested in a rematch with the world champion. He had proved, the vulnerability of his eyebrows apart, that give
n the right circumstances he had Ali’s measure but meanwhile there were titles to defend and a living to make; clearly the two activities did not necessarily coincide. Wicks, sticking to his principle of rejecting ‘ugly’ fighters, turned down a request for Henry to defend his Empire title against that rough handful, George Chuvalo, in Toronto. The reason was actually money for the purse offered by the Canadian promoter was a paltry £8,000. ‘Jim would never let me take my coat off for less than £20,000,’ says Henry. ‘After all, I could fight anywhere for nothing.’

  There was a persistent buzz of interest in a return fight with Ali that died down rather rapidly in the backwash created by the new champion’s second defeat of Liston, the implication being clear that Liston had taken a dive, or ‘swallowed it’. Rumours grew about a deal between the Nation of Islam and the Mafia, for example, and it was this fight, which took place at the obscure location of Lewiston, Maine, on 25 May 1965, that put paid to the established convention of an automatic rematch between any fighter and the man who had deposed him. In future, such rematches were to be a matter of pure negotiation.

  Of the six fights Henry fought after losing to Rischer only one was of any importance: the defence of the British and Empire title against Johnny Prescott. Previously he had put away two Americans, Dick Wipperman in round five at the Royal Albert Hall, followed by Chip Johnson at a match at the Civic Hall in Wolverhampton. The Johnson fight offered some needle for Henry, as it was this fighter who had effectively ended George’s career in the ring by inflicting a huge cut on his eyebrow. After losing to Johnson, George had, in fact, announced his retirement and chose to fall back on the experience he had gained with Reg Reynolds and build up his own plastering business, which was to prosper.

  Rather as his first fight with Brian London had shown, the way to rouse Henry to heights of aggression normally unseen was for his opponent to have beaten his brother. Johnson was unwise enough to announce to the press that he would take care of Henry as he had taken care of George and seize his rightful place in the world rankings. Henry, of course, was informed of this:

  The revenge angle was being played up pretty big, and as far as I was concerned quite legitimately. It was one I wanted to win above most. As it turned out, I didn’t have to wait long. Suddenly he gave me an opening in the first round – Wallop! It was a good left hook, his legs started to quiver and he went down.

  As George returned to the plastering trade, Henry was diversifying and, with hindsight, this was probably an error. He had met, while on holiday in Las Palmas, a businessman, coincidentally named Harry Cooper, who owned a greengrocer’s stall in Holloway market. It obviously paid but he was attempting to expand his enterprise to include a shop. He had thought that Wembley might be a good location and asked Henry’s advice as a resident. Henry gave it, that it was a good location, and thought little more of the matter.

  However, once back home in Wembley, the phone rang. It was Harry Cooper, with something of a hard-luck story; his business partner had, apparently backed out of the proposed transaction, leaving him dangling somewhat. Henry obliged with some funding and his name, and the business, ‘Henry Cooper of Wembley’ at 4 Ealing Road, Wembley, was duly established. It was to go well for a while, even though it seems fairly clear that it was something of an ambush.

  Henry had encountered Johnny Prescott before, as a sparring partner at the Thomas à Becket. The young Midlander was very much the rising star. Danny Cornell’s report of their curious encounter read:

  A largish crowd gathered to see them spar. They saw instead a one-sided war with Cooper in the role of destroyer. I have never seen him look meaner, and in the end, they had to stop it. I have often wondered about that day…it was one of the rare occasions when I didn’t much admire Cooper. And judging by the look of him as he left the ring that day, I don’t think he much admired himself.

  It was an interesting aberration, this meanness, which seemed so untypical of Henry but so routine in other fighters and which surfaced at such inappropriate moments. A professional sparring partner is paid, and paid well, to be knocked over, but the Prescott episode was as much an exhibition as anything else, whereas Henry seemed to be determined to turn it into a full-blown fight, which was unusual behaviour by his standards. It all rather served to make him, unconsciously, a slightly enigmatic figure, despite his popularity.

  The Prescott championship fight, promoted by Jack Solomons in partnership with Alex Griffiths, was a rather one-sided affair, the more so after Henry sustained a cut eye. Prescott was warned for ‘dangerous use of the head’ but the incident served to make Henry change up a gear, as he had learned to do in response to a bad cut. Basically he did to Prescott in the ring what he had already done to him above the Thomas à Becket – he hammered the challenger to the canvas with a left hook in round eight, and twice more in round ten, at which point Prescott’s manager, George Biddles, who also managed another hopeful Midlander, Jack Bodell, threw in the towel. One more defence of the British title and Henry would break the national record of winning and holding no fewer than three Lonsdale belts.

  Ex-marine Amos Johnson had fought Cassius Clay as an amateur and, indeed, had defeated him. Henry was scheduled to fight Johnson (no relation to Chip) on 19 October 1965 at Harry Levene’s favoured venue, the Wembley Pool. Johnson had started his career as a southpaw and rather unusually ‘converted’ to the orthodox style of boxing. It showed a bit, too, as he had clearly not dropped all the habits of his previous approach, nor, indeed, some of the habits of the battlefield or bar-room. He hit Henry low in the first round, which dropped him, and his kidney punches, coupled with another low punch in the sixth, were probably illegal enough to disqualify him, had the referee not been Harry Gibbs, who controversially gave the decision to Johnson after the ten rounds were over.

  Almost as if in compensation for that bruising encounter and its highly questionable outcome, emotional rescue was at hand – a classic deus ex machina. The Queen issued an invitation to Henry to lunch with her at Buckingham Palace. Jim Wicks, who had received an enquiring call from an equerry some days before, was initially nonplussed until the pasteboard flopped onto Henry’s doormat in December; he had assumed that it was a practical joke.

  But, of course, it wasn’t. The esteem in which Henry was now held was bone-deep in the nation and cut across all levels of society like little else ever had since the days of the nineteenth-century heroes of the ring. But, for Henry, the knot of tension that emerged in his bowels on that December morning was quite as bad as that before any prizefight, for there was no institution, not even Jim Wicks, for which he had (or has) a more well-developed respect than the monarchy and in particular the Queen. In fact, in 1957 Henry had – semi-seriously – challenged John Grigg, the Tory polemicist, to a boxing bout in response to certain criticisms Grigg had made about the royal family. He meant it, too, and would have knocked him out in order to simply punish him. Wisely, Grigg declined Henry’s offer.*

  A month later, on 25 January, clearly energized by the encounter at Buckingham Palace, which had quite charmed him, as well as con firming to him that he was indeed fighting for his country, he took on Hubert Hilton, a truck driver from Long Island, NY. Hilton was at the time ranked well up in the top ten contenders for a crack at Ali and had also achieved something of a reputation as a basketball star. He had also stopped both of George Biddles’s great hopes, Bodell and Prescott. He had never even been knocked down, let alone knocked out. Until now.

  Henry was quite merciless. The speed with which he dispatched his opponent, by introducing him to the left hook in round two, was quite outside Hilton’s experience. As he retreated to his corner, clearly stunned and in the middle of the round, the referee, Bill Williams, simply took one look at him and stopped the fight.

  But stopping Hilton was not Henry’s fastest career victory; that was actually coming next, and he savoured the prospect of it. The victim was Jefferson Davis, from Mobile, Alabama. Like Hilton, he also had never actually been k
nocked out in 35 professional fights and had gone the distance with both Karl Mildenberger and Ernie Terrell. He had, more significantly, also beaten George Cooper in seven rounds (another cut) on a previous visit to the UK in October 1963 and Henry was rather tired of his pre-fight pronouncements that he, too, was going for ‘the double.’ The word had clearly not gone out that defeating George ‘Jim’ Cooper would not necessarily put luck in a boxer’s corner if he ever met his brother. Henry went after Davis on a simple search and destroy mission, just as he had with London and Johnson. He found him quickly and dispatched him even faster.

  The fight lasted exactly 100 seconds and was very similar in nature to the Johnson fight. After a minute and a half the Alabama fighter was unwise enough to leave a gap in his defence and Henry as ever did not need prompting; he lashed out with the left and Davis slumped to the canvas for a full count.

  While these minor but pleasing defeats of a succession of American fighters had been going on, Wicks had been in negotiation with Arthur Grafton, the attorney in Louisville who took care of contracts for the syndicate who still supported Ali. The management and promotional contracts they had with their fighter actually expired at the end of the year and they knew that he would fall into the clutches of the Nation of Islam, which was something they were keen to avoid. They had all enjoyed a huge return on their tax-deductible $3,000 per annum and, it must be said, they had enjoyed the experience, however much they were suspicious about the motivations of Elijah Muhammad. They were also fond of their boy, despite his frequently odd behaviour, which was often the result of Elijah’s son Herbert whispering in Ali’s ear.

  Wicks had already put out some feelers to the non-boxing community, which rather suggests that he had ambitions to stage this one himself, independent from either Levene or Solomons. He certainly approached Leslie Grade, who quite saw the commercial value in a Brit fighting for the world title on his home territory, but Grade was clearly a man who knew his limitations, and he passed.