Henry Cooper (22 page)

And Wicks was entirely right. Jim Wicks had, through the course of his extraordinary life, seen changes in the sport of prizefighting which would have been unimaginable when he fought his one and only professional fight all those years before. Boxing had moved from being on the margins of the law to being respectable, to being immensely popular and, in the period when Henry fought, to becoming almost a national obsession.

Wicks’s influence on this sport, mainly subliminal, it must be said, had been huge; he had, along the way, worked at every level of it, from fighter to promoter, manager and fixer. He had over his long career observed a great many sadnesses and glories, errors, tragedies and triumphs and he 
had paid Henry Cooper out with the full coin of those experiences. Henry is in no doubt that Wicks was, professionally, the best thing that ever happened to him; he still feels a profound sense of honour that by the time he retired he was the only boxer left in Wicks’ organization, such as it was by then; indeed that Wicks had gone on in the fight game longer than he had to purely to work with him.

A cynic might say that Henry was actually the best thing to happen to Wicks, and it is hard to disagree, but in reality the relationship between these two men was a quite unique symbiosis, based upon a rare blend of mutual self-interest, but fully balanced by great affection. For Wicks, his approach to life was reflected by that plain statement that might well have served as his epitaph: ‘The game, son, must be played.’ For Henry, there was a more important aspect to the role that Wicks played in his life, as Albina related his own words to me: ‘He always told me, “All my life, I wanted to be somebody.”’

Well, I am pleased to be able to report – he is.

S
ignor Rino Tomasi was an extremely successful promoter. Aged 35, ‘handsome and personable’, he was in many ways Italy’s equivalent of Harry Levene, apart from the fact, of course, that he was both handsome and personable. Tomasi was particularly proud of his favoured venue, the
Palazzo dello Sport
in Rome; of the 23 European title fights, whether challenges or eliminators, that he had staged there at all weights, no Italian fighter had actually lost any of them. It was a trend he was committed to continue. Naturally, he had help.

The traditions of the Roman Colosseum were alive and well at the
Palazzo
; the place was virtually ruled by the heaving, braying mob of up to 18,000 Romans whose noise output was so intimidating that even the most determined of boxing referees could easily quail under its onslaught. The
fact that so many of the Italian fighters who triumphed there would go on to humiliation at other more neutral venues was lost on no one. It was generally held that any Italian midget stood at least a chance of a title win in this place. It was a major asset to Italian boxing in a way that the Wembley Arena could never be.

It was at this highly partisan location, on the eve of the Ides of March 1969, that Henry Cooper, buoyed by his New Year’s honours list OBE, was booked to defend his European title against the ‘Axeman of Manerbio’, Piero Tomasoni, a match to be refereed by Dutchman Ben Bril. This was to be a fight distinguished only by the minimalist elegance of the poster that announced it.

An overgrown welterweight, Tomasoni was a rough and dangerous southpaw fighter with a useful right hand but little finesse. He came from farming stock near Brescia. He was not a boxer in the sense that Henry was -he was a scrapper. He had beaten an unlucky Jack Bodell in three rounds, in one of the most inelegant fights that anyone could remember, and gone the distance with Karl Mildenberger, even knocking him over in the process. He had only been stopped twice in 44 fights, in fact, but, as we have seen, that can be a mere statistic. His style, as a relatively short man, was to fight from a crouching position, throwing out hard, swinging right hands with no particular concern as to their destination. In short, he was a little less than classy.

As a mildly concerned Donald Saunders, clearly familiar with the venue, pointed out: ‘Although Mr. Bril is the most experienced, accomplished and impartial of Continental referees, I think Cooper would be wise not to waste time in settling the issue.’

Others agreed, including John Rodda, the boxing writer, who wrote two days before the fight:

The relative size of the fighters’ purses rather said it all; Henry was to receive
£
20,000, and Tomasoni
£
3,000. I remember watching the fight on television and being utterly appalled by it; it had the truly ghastly fascination of the road accident.

Despite the intimidating atmosphere, Henry was calm, chatting to his little entourage. When the time came to go into the ring, he simply nodded, saying, ‘I got to go to work.’ He slipped in his gumshield (which he would not need in this fight) and climbed up into the spotlights.

The Italian press were well aware that Henry was married to an Italian, and when she was interviewed by several of them at home, Albina broke her habit of not commenting on what her husband did for a living and trenchantly expressed her hope that Henry would ‘knock over Tomasoni in ten seconds’, which he nearly did, catching him with a near perfect left hook late in the first round. The ‘Axeman of
Manerbio’ took a count of eight, and clearly needed it. Commenting shortly after the fight, Henry remarked very charitably: ‘…in fairness to him, he may not have known too much of what happened later.’

The rest of the fight, only four more rounds, in fact (but I recall it seemed much longer), involved some of the most blatant fouls and rule infringements ever seen in the
post-war
ring at this level. The thuggish Tomasoni, squat, plodding, clearly outclassed and hunched like some grotesque
Nibelung
of mythology, launched a panicked flurry of the crudest body punches. Craftily waiting until Ben Bril was unsighted, he threw out a desperate right in the second round that caught Henry full in the balls; he collapsed in outraged agony and Bril blithely started the count, to the clearly audible delight of the crowd. Henry dragged himself to his feet at nine. It was only at the end of the third round that an enraged Jack Solomons, seated ringside, loudly pointed out to Bril what was going on. Bril promptly but nervously warned the Tomasoni corner during the break, to the clear disgust of the crowd. It is perhaps hard to believe it, but worse was to come.

In round four, Henry let rip with a honking left, which dropped his opponent again, but not until he had grabbed Henry and pulled him down to the canvas with him. As they scrambled up, Tomasoni lashed out with another low blow. This was not boxing, it bordered more on sexual assault. As Henry said: ‘The fairground wasn’t in it!’ This time a justifiably nervous but finally alert Bril saw the foul blow and issued a formal warning to the local hero, which was when the oranges started to rain down…

It was 9.15 in the evening and the crowd, aggressive and
well lubricated, made their feelings quite clear. Fruit, paper cups, bread rolls, half-eaten salami – it all came cascading down into the ring, as Henry recalls: ‘I wasn’t so much worried by the food. I was just waiting for the backs of the seats to follow! In an arena like the
Palazzo
, with a balcony fifty feet up, they could knock you sparko. I was ready for a quick dive under the ring.’

He had already seen a distressed Peter Wilson of the
Daily
Mirror
clobbered by a badly aimed blood orange the size of a grapefruit and nearly KO’d by it. Henry already knew rather more than he had ever wanted to about fruit and vegetables; disgustedly, he stepped gingerly around the ring, his bruised undercarriage aching, and kicked the debris back out under the bottom ropes. Round five was coming up; it was time to finish this nonsense and put an end to Signor Tomasi’s proud record as a promoter as well as Tomasoni’s challenge hopes. Without a clean knockout it was quite conceivable that if the farce continued he might even end up with a points loss or, even worse, a cut, not that Tomasoni had seriously attempted to even hit him in the face, being apparently more concerned at assuring that the Cooper family would not get any larger.

It didn’t take Henry long, in fact; early in the fifth, he used his usually quiescent right for a short, extremely pissed-off uppercut to the Axeman’s chin, which travelled, as I recall, a matter of four or five inches. This novelty punch, a complete surprise, set the dazed Tomasoni up for the ritual execution with the left. It was a mighty blow when it came. Henry hit him with every ounce of force he could muster and Tomasoni’s feet left the floor and he slumped, his arms around Henry, probably unaware even
of his own name. As Henry disdainfully shrugged him off and made for a neutral corner (if the
Palazzo
possessed such a thing), Tomasoni collapsed. He briefly struggled up on all fours before slumping down again and a relieved Bril counted him out. ‘God, the so-and-so must have got my middle stump three or four times,’ says Henry. ‘It was a pleasure to see him drop.’

Having now seen at least some humiliation, the crowd calmed down a little and a decent cheer went up for Henry. Even the most partisan of them swiftly calculated that this was not a total loss for at least the winner had an Italian wife, and anyway, two other British boxers, Vic Andreeti and Brian Cartwright, were beaten by Italians that night. Other spectators, it must be said, had probably been embarrassed and disgusted by Tomasoni’s tactics but they threw their assorted missiles just the same, in protest at his foul play. Of course, the effect on those below was indistinguishable.

Bril, attempting to claw back some shred of objective dignity, later stated proudly: ‘Don’t worry, Henry, if you hadn’t got up in the fourth, I’d have disqualified him.’ Perhaps justifiably, Henry was (and remains) sceptical.

Some of the press, ringside though they were, had been a little uncertain as to what they had seen of the foul punches. Wilson was probably still dazed but Neil Allen of
The Times
reported:

So cross was Henry that, no doubt egged on by the reporters, he took the bold step of holding up this usually extremely private boxer’s appurtenance for the inspection of the television viewers back home in Blighty. I vividly recall that the sight of the still-steaming accessory certainly raised my grandmother’s eyebrows (indeed, possibly her pulse and temperature) very high indeed, as Henry brandished the faintly disturbing and clearly unfamiliar object in front of the fascinated cameras. Energized, he pointed to the clear and obvious damage, while announcing to Europe: ‘I don’t care what anybody says – that was bloody low.’ It was a seminal moment in television sporting history.

There was some flak here for Albina, though. Almost as soon as the fight was over (Lily had given her a slightly wincing blow by blow commentary) the Italian press were on the phone. When asked her opinion of what had taken place, she stated categorically: ‘Piero Tomasoni should be ashamed to be an Italian.’

Unsurprisingly, her remarks were spun somewhat: ‘Henry Cooper’s wife ashamed to be born Italian,’ raged back the headlines, which created some trouble in the village of Boccacci, near Parma, where her parents lived and farmed. It created trouble with Wicks, too, and he reiterated the importance of his previous message: ‘I received another phone call from him, telling me to mind my business,’ she recalled.

This had been an exhausting, painful and, despite its championship status, trivial fight, and it would be Henry’s only one that year, as 1969 was the year of further controversy; the year when the British Board of Boxing Control proved that, although it was competent (most of the time), it was also politically naive and in thrall to other interests rather than being truly independent. It was to be a lowering experience for Henry, Jim Wicks and the millions of Cooper fans who, irrespective of their opinion of boxing, were coming to adore him.

At 34, Henry knew full well that his time was running out for another crack at the Big One, the world title. Since Muhammad Ali had been stripped of his own world title in April 1967, over his refusal to accept being drafted for the Vietnam War, the American heavyweight division had undergone yet another unseemly spasm over who should replace him. Naturally, because of the vast amount of money involved, there were several attempts to manage a result, the most persuasive having been the WBA, an organization that enjoyed the widest support (45 out of 50 US states), who announced their roster of eliminators. It did not include Sonny Liston, but perhaps that was fair enough – he had already by then been knocked out by his sparring partner, Leotis Martin, who was definitely not highly rated. Further, Joe Frazier refused to take part in The WBA contest, preferring to line up alongside the New York Athletic Commission, Norris’s old fiefdom and their version of the title as represented by the World Boxing Council.

The WBA champion was announced to be Jimmy Ellis, Muhammad Ali’s old friend and sparring partner. Of the
two men, Ellis was clearly going to be the better match, and Henry challenged him, only to be told that the BBBC would not sanction the fight as a championship bout but merely an eliminator; they were firmly lined up behind the NBC.

Rather impulsively, Henry resigned his British heavyweight title in protest but the BBBC were quite unmoved. They had in all probability expected his retirement soon anyway and seemed not to care less. A cynic might say that the BBBC had earned as much out of Henry as they were going to and there were other fighters on the way up. Joe Bugner, a strapping lad of 15 stone and only 19 years of age, had just won his fifteenth fight, for example, and was clearly being groomed for a crack at Henry’s titles.

But there were intimations of age for Henry and the wear and tear that went with that. One of Henry’s party pieces at ringside and in the gym was Cossack dancing – it was good exercise and pleased his fans. While demonstrating the trick at a well-attended training session, though, he managed to wreck the cartilage in his right knee. He had encountered trouble with it before but that had been seen off with painful but necessary cortisone jabs. This was much more serious. Even worse was the condition of his left elbow by now; the wear in the joint was potentially handicapping and the seizures after a fight were becoming both more painful and lasting longer. Few but insiders were aware that for up to a week after a fight the left arm was almost useless. Given that he barely ever used his right hand, in the ring or out of it, unless he had to, then it was clear that the clock was ticking, and loudly, and that both Henry and Wicks could hear it. Nothing was said and nor did it need to be. Wicks, at 75
years of age, had been through this depressing cycle many times before.