BoxRec

Don Cockell: The Battersea Blacksmith

By Derek O'Dell

A letter marked "Please Forward" and addressed to Don Cockell had been kicking around in Jack Solomons' gymnasium for weeks. Don owned a hairdressing business near my home so I volunteered to deliver it. He and I bumped into each other in the shop doorway and I mean "bumped" – he was going out as I was going in.

This was in 1951 when Don was on a run of impressive wins over men like Freddie Beshore, Nick Barone, Lloyd Marshall and Albert Finch. The contest with Finch replaced a world-title challenge against Joey Maxim. Jack Solomons had Joey signed to a firm contract but the Board of Control stepped in and ordered Don to defend his national crown against the Croydon man.

A few weeks earlier I'd watched Cockell box an exhibition with Jack Gardner. His superb physique had brought murmurs from an admiring crowd. He was a splendid figure oozing fitness and ambition and gliding around the ring with sparkling footwork. The contrast with the man now standing in front of me in the shop doorway was stark. Now he was sallow-skinned, fat, and had a nasty boil on his neck. This was the man tipped to beat Maxim yet he looked less imposing than the dossers lolling around the park along the road. I was so shaken at his appearance that I nearly forgot the reason for my mission.

A few weeks later, Jimmy Slade, an unrated American, wiped the floor with him. Worse followed when Randolph Turpin, still a middleweight, stopped Don in eleven rounds.

I thought about that boil and the fat rolls bulging from Cockell's waist and assumed that Don was one of those fighters who didn't train when a fight wasn't in the offing. He'd taken the Slade fight at short notice. If only I'd known then what agonies he'd undergone and how weakened he'd become in his efforts to keep his weight below the light-heavyweight limit! It did register that Don had agreed to meet Slade at the 13 stone limit but his weight problems were a well kept-secret.

Glandular disorders wreaked havoc with Cockell's physique. Hard as he tried, he could not control the fat that piled on to his frame and he was forced to compete at heavyweight level in 1952. Don had come back from a bout of rheumatic fever earlier in his career. It was an illness of such severity that he was not expected to box again. Cockell had two attributes going for him: he was resilient and he had guts – the latter in bucketloads. That he managed to make a considerable mark as a heavyweight is a tribute to his courage and burning determination.

Continue reading:

http://blog.boxinghistory.org.uk/2011/1 ... smith.html

It was while Marciano was training for that fight that he came to the conclusion
that he didnt have it anymore to box
(the smell of the Gym even started to make him physically nauseated).
IMOP if Cockell had slipped even a fraction of those punches,
Marciano that he landed,Marciano may have been too exhausted to come out for the 15th round,he looked that tired.

..it's hard to slip low blows, punches after the bell, head butts and being hit when you're down.

Jaclem wrote:..it's hard to slip low blows, punches after the bell, head butts and being hit when you're down.

You are quite right.

Cockell-Marciano was the first full Marciano fight I ever saw on film.

I was terribly unimpressed and pretty disappointed by what I saw.

Sorry, but I've got to be honest.