In the small hours of May 16, 1955 my father woke me in the darkness, lit a candle in the scullery, plugged in his old crystal radio set and told me to listen to a world heavyweight title fight taking place in San Francisco.
Don Cockell of Balham, south London, was challenging Rocky Marciano of Brockton, Massachusetts, for the world heavyweight championship. Most of the sound which came whistling through the static was that of Marciano’s eight-ounce gloves thudding into Cockell’s head and body.
Marciano kept knocking down Cockell, who kept getting up. Until the ninth round, when Rocky nailed him to the canvas for good with a booming right which seemingly connected while he was on his knees.
When the BBC radio commentator put that question to the champ, Marciano replied: ‘Britain can be proud of her boy Don Cockell.’
Jack Powell, whose toughness had carried him through the landings and trenches of the Second World War as well as countless fights inside and outside the ring, slammed his fist on the kitchen table and said: ‘As if keeping beating us ain’t enough, they have to bloody patronise us.’
I was 13. Not until I was 50 – and Marciano had long since become the only heavyweight champ to retire undefeated – would Lennox Lewis end our century-long wait for a successor to Bob Fitzsimmons.
Lennox Lewis (pictured) ended Great Britain’s wait for a successor to Bob Fitzsimmons as the United States dominated the heavyweight scene
American stars such as George Foreman (left) and Muhammad Ali (right) dominated the previous era
That eternity was flooded with such revered Americans as Jack Johnson, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Floyd Patterson, Sonny Liston, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Mike Tyson, Larry Holmes and Evander Holyfield.
The golden age of heavyweight boxing gave us the Fight of the Century and the Thrilla in Manila – both between Ali and Frazier – the Rumble in the Jungle with Ali and Foreman, the Upset of the Century by Buster Douglas over Tyson, Dempsey v Gene Tunney, Louis v both Max Schmeling and Jersey Joe Walcott and Ali’s slaying of the Liston monster. That was the time when the Star Spangled Banner flew over America’s mocking of ‘Britain’s Horizontal Heavyweights.’
Henry Cooper remained perpendicular against The Greatest of them all but there was scant recognition over the water of how he knocked Ali down and almost out with the left hook renowned as ‘Enery’s ‘Ammer’ in the first of two stadium fights he lost to his propensity to suffer cuts.
So, oh, how we gloated when we watched Riddick Bowe dump his WBC belt in a London dustbin rather than fight Lewis, who was thereby elevated to his first title by decree. Rejoiced when Lennox validated his title by beating Oliver McCall in September 1995. Acclaimed Lenny the Lion when he became our only three-time world heavyweight champion.
We breathed a huge sigh of relief when Frank Bruno beat McCall at an emotional Wembley, finally to become world champion. Just as we fretted for him when he genuflected umpteen times on his way to the Las Vegas ring for a second crushing by Tyson and the loss of his crown.
Even so, British heavyweight boxing was transitioning from famine to feast. The US can boast 53 champions all time in the prize-ring’s marquee division. All the way back to the immortal John L Sullivan in the late 1880s. But the UK has accelerated from one active heavyweight champion in 2003 – Lewis when he bloodied and defeated Vitali Kliltschko – to a running total of 11 today if you delete the asterisks against Michael Bent, Herbie Hide and Henry Akinwande who wore the WBO belt before that organisation was fully recognised.
David Haye built on the Lewis legacy when he bamboozled Russia’s 7ft giant Nikolai Valuev and thereby emulated Holyfield’s feat of an undisputed cruiserweight king becoming world heavyweight champion.
The Russo-Ukraine brothers Klitschko broke the US domination but then both Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua followed that Lewis victory over Vitali by vanquishing Wladimir.
British heavyweight boxing was transitioning from famine to feast, which has included the likes of Tyson Fury (left) and Anthony Joshua (right)
Britannia’s Rule was stunningly interrupted by Oleksandr Usyk’s revival of the Kyiv Conspiracy with two dazzling victories apiece over the Gypsy King and AJ, followed by another double over their heir apparent Daniel Dubois.
Oleksandr The Great’s abrupt relinquishing of all the belts opened the gateway to an immediate UK renaissance. One in which it is not Americans but Brits fighting each other for the glittering prizes.
This Saturday at the O2, Dubois and the amazingly reconstructed white-collar boxer Fabio Wardley reprise their blood and thunder war for the now-respected WBO title. This time with Dynamite Daniel as the champion.
The winner is likely to go on to meet in the not-too-distant future whoever prevails in the over-long awaited settlement between Fury and Joshua – which, belatedly though it comes in December, is so full of fascination that it has sold ticket at prices higher than the gross national product of some third-world countries.
By then Moses Itauma should have recovered from the drastic loss of stamina – and a blown IBF title shot against Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic – to resume leadership of the next generation. German WBC champion Agit Kabayel will soon be in all those crosshairs.
With all the above except Joshua in Frank Warren’s stable there are more Brit-bashes galore waiting to be made. With only one big guy of promise, Jared Anderson, to be seen on the western horizon.
And to think Americans used to belittle their last heavyweight champion of note Deontay Wilder as ‘just a puncher’.
The biggest puncher since Iron Mike, as it happens. How they must be wishing over there that Fury had not ended the Bronze Bomber’s five-year run of knockouts in the murderous final act of their epic trilogy.
Daniel Dubois (left) and Fabio Wardley (right) will face off this weekend with more Brit-bashes galore waiting to be made
Throughout America’s glorious boxing history the world heavyweight champion was the symbol of their national manhood. Today they lay no claim to any of the alphabelts.
There are extraneous factors at work. The majority of strapping young American athletes – be they graduating from college or seeking ways out of the projects – are taking to basketball, their version of football and baseball, rather than take a headbashing in the ring on the off-chance of making their fortunes.
US boxing is down to pinning its hopes on a brash young Mexican-American welterweight Ryan Garcia – on the back of his destruction of a humiliated Conor Benn. All while the Blue Riband of the ring is hoisted this side of the pond.
Not so Yankee-Doodle-Dandy now, gentlemen.
