A Boxing Memory: Pat Cowdell

A Boxing Memory: Pat Cowdell

When I remember Pat Cowdell, I think largely of three fights. That almighty struggle with the brilliant Mexican Salvador Sanchez in 1981 for the WBC featherweight championship of the world. The mind also flickers back to two nights when Cowdell didn’t see out the opening three minutes. The big punching Azumah Nelson flattened Cowdell inside a round in 1985, and the night the unheralded and unfancied Najib Daho did the same the following year. But the career of Cowdell was much more than those three fights.

Cowdell was a highly decorated amateur, winning four ABA titles at three different weights. Cowdell went to New Zealand to win gold at the 1974 Commonwealth Games and won bronze two years later at the Montreal Olympic Games, both at bantamweight. There was also a bronze medal at the 1975 European Championships. Cowdell fought at featherweight in Poland.

The professional journey started in 1977 with a six-round points victory over Albert Coley in Wolverhampton. Cowdell remained unbeaten until his sixth fight when a cut eyebrow against Alan Robertson in 1978 ended his unblemished start to his life as a professional boxer. But Cowdell was undeterred and in 1979 won a final eliminator for the British featherweight title with a points victory over twelve hard rounds against Les Pickett. But two fights later in a fight that was infamous for angry demonstrations from the Wolverhampton faithful, Cowdell lost a close disputed decision to Dave Needham for the British title.

But Cowdell travelled to London in his next fight and beat Needham in another close fight to be crowned the British champion. Cowdell won five more fights, including another win over Needham, which earned him the Lonsdale belt outright, and then travelled to Houston, Texas, to face one of the best fighters on the planet.

Cowdell was almost certainly never better than he was against Sanchez. The odds were long, but Cowdell defied many experts by pushing the sublime Mexican to a split decision. One judge scored it 145-144 for the British challenger, while the other two judges scored it wide for Sanchez. Cowdell was dropped in the 15th round when the gas tank was fading. But it was the night Cowdell proved he belonged in world-class. Cowdell returned the following year and claimed the European title with a stoppage win over the Italian southpaw Salvatore Melluzzo at Wembley Arena. But when on the verge of another world title shot against Juan LaPorte and just nineteen days away from a defence of his European title Cowdell retired at the start of 1983, citing a loss of hunger for the sport as the reason he walked away at just twenty-nine.

But by May 1984, Cowdell was back. Within two fights, he had beaten the excellent Jean-Marc Renard to win the European super-featherweight title. After five more wins on his comeback, Azumah Nelson was tempted to come to Birmingham in 1985 to face Cowdell in defence of his WBC featherweight title. But it was a disaster for Cowdell. He was caught cold and knocked out at the 2:24 point of the opening round by a booming left uppercut, which knocked him cold. Boxing News described it as an out-and-out mugging.

Cowdell ignored calls to retire and won the British super-featherweight title with a 6th-round stoppage victory over John Doherty in Bradford. But the newly won title was lost in the first defence when Cowdell travelled to Manchester and was stopped inside a round by Najib Daho in a sensational upset in 1986. Cowdell got revenge the following year when he survived an early scare to stop Daho in Birmingham in nine rounds. But when the talented Floyd Havard stopped Cowdell in his native Wales, Cowdell called time on his career in 1988 with a final career record of 36-6.