Farewell to Henry Cooper

‘Our Enery’, as he was affectionately known, had a left-hand hammer blow that felled many a star fighter, including famously no less than a certain callow Cassius Clay before the American was to establish a world domination as Muhammad Ali.

Cooper’s nemesis was not being out-skilled or even out-muscled by a litany of high-calibre opponents. His biggest and most powerful opponent was the way in which his skin around his eyes would split open and bleed.

But for that potentially fatal handicap, Cooper could well have held the world heavyweight belt above his head. Remember back then there was only one world title for every weight division unlike these days when an umpteenth version of a global crown appears to depend on which amalgam of initials you can form around the letter ‘W’.

While Cooper was hewn out of the old school – power-paced but polite, true to his London roots of which he learned to ply his trade in the cruellest game, and gracious to the point of deservedly earning the epithet “gentle giant” – he actually represented the missing link between two generations.

His stock was from the sweat-streaked East End gymnasiums where fighting was a way out yet as much for personal pride and kudos as financial reward.

Back then recompense was far from the mind-boggling sums coursing around world boxing’s top table. Yet Cooper survived near two decades of combat to make the cross-over into what was then a burgeoning world of celebrity.

Cooper was almost as famous for his endorsements as he was for his ring-craft. The “splash it all over” adverts for Brut after-shave alongside two of the 1970s superstars in Kevin Keegan and Barry Sheene became the stuff of iconic legend. And through it all Cooper’s persona as a man of the street, a man of the people, a man on whom you could trust, remained unimpaired.

Other boxers followed – some with even more potent championship success than Cooper such as Lennox Lewis, John Conteh, Alan Minter, Maurice Hope, Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn, Lloyd Honeyghan and latterly Naseem Hamed and Ricky Hatton. Currently England boasts world heavyweight champion David Haye – holder of one of four world title belts – and world light-welterweight ring-king Amir Khan.

But while many have surpassed Cooper in his ring achievements there are few, if any, to have mirrored his character and charisma. And now rather than blood, sweat and tears, or even brut, sweat and tears, boxing appears to be swamped by bling, threat and sneers.

As boxing at its world title zenith spins outside the ring to as much hype as it does hitting power, it is under threat from a slow drain in interest. Bizarrely, as it has absorbed the razzamatazz and cash springing from the demands of exclusive television rights, professional boxing is now being usurped by the sham-dramatics of another hit on the letter ‘W’, namely wrestling.

Britain’s present top two pugilists Haye and Khan are extremely talented, exceptionally gifted and capable of writing their own chunks in sport’s folklore, particularly Olympic medallist Khan who is at the outset of his career while Haye has publicly addressed the question of retirement within the next year or so.

It is totally wrong to hold up champions of sport, any sport, as role models, but it is neither wrong to remind how Cooper was grace under pressure even when the man opposite him was trying to knock seven bells of stuffing out of him. Cheers Henry. THERE was another death this week from the same era as Henry Cooper.

“Whispering” Ted Lowe, the doyen of snooker commentators, passed away and the BBC generation of erudite talking heads had lost another of their number.

Lowe, who introduced a new battalion of baize lovers to the sport via Pot Black, was of the same ilk as Harry Carpenter, Brian Johnston and Bill McLaren. There must be some great commentary accompanying the celestial games in the after-life.