Cobb Goes Down, Out in First Round of Comeback Bid

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.

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.

That fight ended in a rare technical draw when bantamweight Frankie Duarte was ruled the victim of an accidental head butt by Freddie Jackson. The collision produced a cut on Duarte’s right eyelid that required three stitches.

Referee Marty Denkin stopped the bout at 2:38 of Round 2.

Earlier in the round, Duarte had knocked down Jackson, ranked No. 2 in the WBC, but the butt negated the entire second round.

That left only the first round, which Jackson, although landing no serious blows, had won, according to all three cards. Since the victim of an accidental butt cannot lose a fight, the only option was the draw.

Afterward, the controversy was heightened by charges and countercharges over who was the butter and who was the buttee.

“He butted me twice,” said the Duarte, 31, whose record remains 36-6. “He knew he was going to get knocked out in a couple of minutes.”

Responded Jackson: “I saw him wipe his eye and look at some blood before the head butt. They were just waiting for the head to come close so they could call it.”

Last spring, Jackson fought Daniel Zaragoza in the Caribbean for the WBC title. Jackson felt he was ahead on points that day when the fight was stopped in the seventh round.

Jackson had been disqualified--for an illegal head butt.

Will there be a rematch?

Jackson, 25, said he would leave it up to his manager.

His manager, Willie Savannah, said, “I don’t think this place can hold enough people or produce enough money for us to fight here again.

“We don’t need Frankie Duarte. Frankie Duarte needs us.”

As for Cobb, there are no thoughts of retirement.

“I’m still learning,” he 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.

In preliminary fights, featherweight Kenny Wyatt knocked out Robert Ortiz in the second round of their bout. Derwin Richards knocked out Joey Demuth in the first round of their lightweight bout, and Indio Veronica stopped Levin Payne in the second round of their welterweight fight.