Cobb loss to Collier query (TKO instead of KO?)

[Controversial]

Further to a post on history forum about Cobb being KO'd in one by Dee Collier, reading the LA Times report it suggests the fight was stopped rather than a clean KO, especially as the fifth knockdown was ruled a slip.

"Tex Cobb was pleading with referee Lou Filippo. “Just give me a second,” he kept saying. “I’ll get there.” The heavyweight fight, at Reseda’s Country Club, was stopped at 2:33 of the first round after Cobb had gone down four times from a barrage of punches and a fifth due to a slip. In his career, which includes 32 professional fights, the 31-year-old boxer had only been knocked down once--last spring against Eddie Gregg. While the technical knockout in the main event stunned the sellout crowd of about 1,000, it was no more bizarre than the semi-main event, which left everyone angry."

[Tuan_Jim]

Given the interest in the bout, perhaps the article is worth adding to the Wiki?

Cobb Goes Down, Out in First Round of Comeback Bid
By STEVE SPRINGER
OCT. 30, 1985 12 AM PT

Tex Cobb was pleading with referee Lou Filippo.

“Just give me a second,” he kept saying. “I’ll get there.”

He never did.

Cobb, who went the distance against such renowned punchers as Larry Holmes and Ken Norton, couldn’t get out of the first round against little-known Dee Collier Tuesday night.

The heavyweight fight, at Reseda’s Country Club, was stopped at 2:33 of the first round after Cobb had gone down four times from a barrage of punches and a fifth due to a slip.

In his career, which includes 32 professional fights, the 31-year-old boxer had only been knocked down once--last spring against Eddie Gregg.

“I’m still learning,” Cobb said. “I haven’t had near enough.

“I just never seemed to regain my balance.”

Cobb, who had retired after losing to Gregg in May, had returned to the ring with the hope of winning a match with newly crowned heavyweight champion Michael Spinks.

Collier, who entered the fight 10-3 with four knockouts, put Cobb down with a left early in the round, then drove him into his corner and halfway through the ropes seconds later.

When Cobb went down in the other corner a moment later, the referee showed the first indication he was ready to stop the fight.

Cobb reappeared to talk him out of it at least twice.

But after another knockdown and a slip that could better be characterized as a poor stumble, Cobb was through and it was Collier’s turn to talk.

“I couldn’t believe it myself, to tell you the truth,” Collier said. “But it’s time for Tex Cobb to move aside and let us young guys in.”

Howard Cosell beat Collier to the punch on that statement. He retired from announcing professional boxing after watching Holmes pummel Cobb for 15 rounds in 1982.

But even Howard might have been left speechless by Tuesday’s performance.

[wouter]