LOOK WHO’S BACK . . . : TEX COBB : A Hope of Fighting Spinks Returns Boxing to His Blood, and Vice Versa

He once stood on the roof of his dormitory at Abilene Christian University, clad only in an athletic supporter, a crossbow in one hand, flaming arrows in the other, screaming, “Get ready to die!” at the dwellers of a neighboring dorm.

He once stood in the face of then-heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, who might as well have been screaming, “Get ready to die,” and endured more punishment than Sly Stallone took in Rocky I, II and III combined.

He has been a movie star, is about to become a television star, has fought the best, the brightest, the baddest, the meanest, the toughest and the orneriest in everything from conventional boxing to kick boxing to karate to street fighting to bar bouncing.

He’s drawn more blood than Dracula and given an equal amount.

So what do you think Randal (Tex) Cobb considers his No. 1 achievement?

Knocking Howard Cosell out of the boxing picture, of course.

Cobb may have been able to shrug off the blows from his 1982 loss to Holmes, blows that left one eye shut, his nose a bloody mess and his puffy face a horrible shade of purple, but Cosell couldn’t stomach it.

In his recently published book, “I Never Played The Game,” Cosell remembers watching Holmes pulverize Cobb with 26 unanswered blows in the ninth round alone. The ABC broadcaster writes that he was sickened enough to permanently turn his back on professional boxing. And he hasn’t been back since.

“If I eliminate heart disease, if I walk on water, if I come up with a cure for crippled kids, I can’t imagine a greater gift to mankind,” Cobb said proudly of Cosell’s exit. “That is my greatest accomplishment.

“I know that fight was called the greatest mismatch in history, but all I know is that when it was over, I was walking forward.”

Now, he’s focusing his battle-weary eyes on an even greater accomplishment as he prepares for a return to the ring Tuesday night at the Country Club in Reseda for what figures to be a tuneup against one Dee Collier.

When Michael Spinks upset Holmes for the heavyweight title last month, the cheers emanated from every corner of every dingy gym in the country.

Suddenly, heavyweights who wouldn’t have dreamed of getting into a ring with Holmes were stumbling over one another as they raced to the head of the suddenly formed line outside Spinks’ door. Spinks, the 174-pound light-heavyweight champion, had blown himself up to 200 to fight for the heavyweight crown , and the real heavyweights can’t wait for a shot at him.

Cobb is no exception.

He had tentatively retired after losing a 10-round decision to Eddie Gregg last May in a fight during which he was knocked down for the first time in his career.

“He decided his heart wasn’t in it,” said his manager, Joe Derick. “After losing, a title shot seemed a million miles away.”

But Spinks? Well, that’s different.

“When Spinks beat Holmes, that proved that anybody could be world champion,” Derick said.

At least anybody who has survived in the ring against Holmes, Ken Norton, Earnie Shavers, Michael Dokes and Bernardo Mercado, as Cobb has. True, he lost to Norton and Dokes, as well as Holmes. But Spinks would be another matter, Cobb said.

The important thing, according to Cobb, would be the disparity in weight. He figures he would come in weighing somewhere between 215 and 230 pounds.

“That’s what I’m betting on, that the 25 to 30 pounds will make a difference,” Cobb said. “I haven’t fought since May, but you’re not talking about somebody coming out of cobwebs.”

First, of course, there has to be a fight, and Cobb, at best, is third in line.

“I wouldn’t rule out Cobb, but he’s not a front-runner,” Spinks’ promoter, Butch Lewis, said. “Everybody in the industry has contacted me.

“Larry Holmes is very interested in a rematch. He contacted me the week after the fight and has called me several times since. We are asking for a $3 million minimum to fight him, and it just goes up from there.”

Holmes has apparently changed his mind. Immediately after he lost to Spinks, he told reporters: “I’m going to quit. There will be no rematch unless it’s with my wife.”

Lewis said that if a Holmes fight falls through, Gerry Cooney would probably be the next choice as an opponent.

“That doesn’t say we have to come to terms with either of them,” Lewis said. “If not, Tex is a definite possibility. I like the guy, but I think he’s in the wrong business. He should stay in Hollywood. He could be a good actor.”

Cobb is working on it. He had a starring role in the movie “Uncommon Valor.”

Tough job?

“I didn’t bleed and I made some money,” he said. “Are you kidding? What I’m out here to do, Bubba, (he calls everybody either Bubba, Darlin’ or Honey), is dodge work. And if I can find anything easier than fightin’, I’m going to do it.”

Cobb, who has made several commercials, also has made appearances in several television series, including a pilot for a proposed series that would give him a recurring role as an ex-biker turned plainclothes police officer. Some of the details have yet to be worked out.

“What they have now is creative differences,” Cobb said. “What I have now is rent!”

It seems to have always been so.

When he was growing up, this Texan didn’t have much more than his dreams. Did he ever dream about being a boxer?

“I dreamed about eating . . . sleeping . . . and Annette Funicello,” he said.

Staring at a reporter, his eyes narrow, a mock grimace crossed his face and he began to shake his finger. “If you write that, I know where you work,” he said. “I will find you and hurt you.”

Then he broke into laughter, his huge body shaking. This 6-3, 230-pounder is more Gentle Ben than Bigfoot.

He is always acting. Always performing. Ask him his record and he’ll tell you, “Thirty-seven arrests. No convictions.”

Ask him if he’d ever been knocked off his feet before the Gregg fight and he’ll tell you only once, by a 135-pounder in a bar. “But I don’t think that counts because someone was swinging him by the heels at the time,” he says.

Life for Cobb has turned into one long Johnny Carson monologue. And why not? The laughs are always there. And now the bucks are coming as well. So what’s a little scar tissue among friends?

There weren’t a whole lot of laughs, however, after his flaming exit from Abilene Christian and his career as a collegiate linebacker. He didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life but he was sure of one thing--it wouldn’t involve work.

“I had spent two years working at night, loading sides of beef, while I was going to school, Bubba,” he said. “I hadn’t slept in a year and a half. But I had confidence I could play pro ball (football). So when I left school, it was a parting of the ways that was a long way from tearful.”

Somehow, though, he never quite got around to football.

“I started wanderin’ around the country, bouncin’ in bars, whatever came to mind,” Cobb said. “All white collar jobs.

“NASA called. They wanted me to be a rocket scientist, but I was takin’ names and bouncing in bars at the time. I wound up living in a karate studio in Albuquerque. It was great. I got a place to crash and a meal, and all I had to do was take on whoever was the baddest dude in the place at the time.

“I also had an auxiliary career shoveling cement. I made enough money to just about get drunk, depending on where you went.”

He gravitated into kick boxing and finally into boxing itself.

“I was told I would be sent to Philadelphia to become a fighter and I wouldn’t have to work. That was another lie,” he said. “But I figure, if I’m going to give blood, I’m going to give it to the highest bidder.

“I don’t care what the rules are. When I get in the ring, people are going to get hurt. You think I got this scar tissue from running into parked cars? I’ve been hit with everything but a ’54 Pontiac. And the only reason I haven’t been hit with that is because they couldn’t get it off the ground.

“I’ll fight anybody, as long as they’re payin’ American money, Darlin’. They want me to fight a bear, fine. Let’s get the drawers on him and get on with it.”

So off he went to Philadelphia in search of his fortune. He trained in the gym of another man who has been known to take a pint of blood now and then, Joe Frazier.

Cobb didn’t mind giving blood, just money. After the Holmes fight, he wound up in court, contesting his purse with managers Paul Clinite and Joe Gramby. That suit is still pending.

In the meantime, Cobb, 31, has to keep on swinging, since his obligations have grown. There are not only mouths to punch now, but mouths to feed as well. In what may be one of boxing’s biggest upsets, Tex Cobb, hell raiser, has become, of all things, Tex Cobb, family man.

He has an actual place of residence, in Sherman Oaks, a wife, Kathy, and two sons, Bo, 17 months old, and Josh, 3 months old and already 20 pounds 17 ounces.

“I have to fight,” the proud father said. “For breakfast, Bo is already eating three eggs, two pieces of toast--and I’m not even talking about the piece of cheese melted in there--and a thing of yogurt.”

So the next generation of Cobb brawlers are on the way? No way, said their father.

“My boys can play football. They can play baseball. They can play basketball. But if I ever, ever catch them putting leather on their hands or a (sparring) helmet on their heads, we are going to have a serious talk that may result in serious medical problems for them.

“Let them be the next Jack Nicklaus or Jimmy Connors. They will be able to defend themselves, but I don’t want to see them become fighters.”

Cobb’s own future depends on his ability to start beating people again in the ring. Under the supervision of trainers Greg and Joe Goossen and other members of the large Goossen boxing family, he is working out at the Ten Goose gym in North Hollywood.

Cobb will bring a 25-6 record and 20 KOs into Tuesday night’s fight. His opponent, Collier, 6-3 and 212 pounds, has a 10-3 record and 4 KOs. Is Cobb worried?

“All I know about him is that he will show up in gloves and shorts,” Cobb said. “I will show up in gloves and shorts. I figure there will be an exchange of lefts and rights. And before it’s over, one or more of us will be bleeding.”

That much you can bet on, Bubba.