Knucklez wrote:re the Cooper/Clay delay.
I've read Steve Lott's report before and others like it which say there was no more than a couple of seconds' delay.
On the flip side of that, I've seen interviews with Henry Cooper where he says that the fight had to be stopped so that someone could fetch another glove from the locker room, which at Wembley is '150 yards away', according to Cooper himself.
It seems odd that he would concoct a story that was so different from what seems to be the actual facts.
Well then, Cooper's story must be the truth. After all, no fighter in history has ever lied or embellished the facts to explain why he lost . . .
Britisher Bob Mee explains the whole incident as follows: "In the interval [between the fourth and fifth rounds],
which was extended slightly by the discovery of a tear in Clay's glove, Clay's corner applied smelling salts to help bring him around. By the time the delayed round five started,
with a board official having run off to the dressing room to find a replacement pair of gloves and a plan to fit them after the round had ended, Clay had recovered." Bob Mee,
The Heavyweights (2006), p. 70 (emphasis mine). Of course, since Clay stopped Cooper in the fifth, the new gloves weren't needed.
I am not saying the extra 8 seconds reported by Steve Lott didn't help Clay. (I can think of times when I could have used an extra 8 seconds with a fighter between rounds.) But the idea of a substantial delay is just an urban legend.