‘Henry Cooper, I'm coming to London to get you. And after I'm through beating him, I think he'll have to join The Beatles and be a singer. I'm coming to get you, Henry. I don't like the way you knocked me down the last time. No man knocks me down and gets away with it, so you be ready for it, you hear?’
Muhammad Ali pre-fight hype on British TV
WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN MAY 1966?
• No1 in the UK music charts - Paint It, Black - The Rolling Stones
• Graham Hill won the Indianapolis 500
• 5,000m world record holder, Zola Budd was born
• Gianni Motta won the Giro d’Italia cycle race in Monte Carlo
• The XB-70 Valkyrie strategic bomber became the first plane to sustain speed in excess of Mach-3 for more than 30 minutes
• Jackie Stewart won the F1 Grand Prix in Monaco
• Janet Jackson was born
• Muhammad Ali v Henry Cooper rematch
The first fight in 1963 left doubts with the onlookers after Henry’s Hammer floored the fighter formerly known as Cassius Clay, in the dying seconds of the fourth round. Cooper’s hook left Ali on unsteady legs and visibly disorientated as he walked to the corner, with the British crowds cheering on their fellow countryman. Was the glove tampered with to add time to Ali’s recovery and did Angelo Dundee administer illegal smelling salts which aided Ali’s quick recovery? We’ll never know. The only way to settle the score was to run the fight back again.
The media started to cook up the fight from January 1966, then by April, contracts had been signed, with Ali receiving a purse of $520,000 for their intended meet on 21 May 1966. Promoted by Harry Levene as ‘The Fight Night of the Century,’ many would recall the encounter years later as a clash between, ‘The Greatest’ and ‘Our Enry.’
The fight took place at Arsenal’s old Highbury stadium and it was all hands on deck to get the venue ‘box-ready’ for fight night. Even a young Arsenal apprentice by the name of Charlie George, helped to put the ring together for the show and former club secretary and managing director, Ken Friar OBE said: ‘The logistics of transforming the ground into a venue suitable for a boxing match were amazing. The whole pitch was renovated and reseeded before it was boarded over.’ (Arsenal.com)
The undercard acted as a good appetiser to the main event, with six well matched contests, including Jimmy Tibbs versus Tom Calderwood (Tibbs knocked Calderwood out in the second round after hitting the canvas himself twice in the first), Johnny Pritchett versus Johnny Kramer (Pritchett winning via TKO 8) and Ali’s sparring partner, Jimmy Ellis smashing Fijian, Leweni Waqa in the first round.
Championship honours were not on the line for the first contest in 1963, whereas this time round, Ali was the heavyweight king of the world, having defeated Sonny Liston in 1964. The Cooper rematch was Ali’s fourth world title defence, with the Louisville Lip weighing in at a championship lightest of a touch under 202lbs, whereas Cooper weighed in at 180lbs and with a height differential of an inch a half below Ali’s 6ft 3 inches frame.
Come fight night, an abundance of celebrities were in attendance, including the likes of James Bond himself, Sean Connery and Hollywood stars, such as George Raft, Elizabeth Taylor and Lee Marvin. The reported footfall was a little over 46,000 fans, which would remain a record for the biggest attendance for a fight on British soil up to 2007, which was then superseded by Joe Calzaghe versus Mikkel Kessler for a super middleweight unification fight, with over 55,000 in attendance. That was then smashed by Carl Froch versus George Groves, which Froch has great pleasure of informing everyone to this day that 80,000 people were in attendance at Wembley Stadium. In more recent times, Daniel Dubois versus Anthony Joshua brought in over 98,000 spectators to Wembley and this will be expected to be increase exponentially in the not too distant future. We digress. Back to Ali v Cooper 2.
For the first three stanzas, the 24-year-old champion kept light on his feet, allowing Cooper to hunt him, whilst working off the back foot and demonstrating some beautiful counter work. However, 32-year-old Cooper was busier and landed more punches, which worked in his favour. The first two rounds went Henry’s way, with the third counted as a draw.
Ali went into the fourth, two rounds behind, but balanced the books by clinically winning the next couple. Going into round six, the scores were even, but Ali decided to turn the screw and let loose with a right hand which tore open a devastating gash over Cooper’s left eye which instantly started spouting blood on both fighters. As Cooper’s face turned into a bloody mess and the ring apron started to change colour, the referee rightly intervened at one minute and 38 seconds of the round and stopped the fight.
Ali had won by TKO with minimal marking to his face, while Cooper was taken to Guys Hospital a few hours later after, where he was patched up with 12 stitches. Despite Cooper’s manager, Jim Wicks claiming Ali had headbutted Cooper and should have been disqualified, the result stood.
Straight after the victory, Ali went round to Cooper’s changing room to check if he was okay. The champ told the media, ‘I hate to spill blood. It's against my religion.’
Apart from those in attendance at Highbury, the fight was also watched by around 40,000 viewers throughout the UK, on one of the earliest pay per view (PPV) platforms, via closed circuit television. The fight was telecast across a number of Odeon cinemas nationwide, 16 theatres and was later aired on the BBC, where a reported 21 million viewers tuned in throughout the UK. Across the pond, the fight was broadcast live to 20 million Americans through the medium of satellite.
In addition, the PPV home television service, which at the time was the first home platform to purchase a fight in your own surroundings, was yours at a cost of £4 (about £65 in 2025 money). Total income generated by PPV for the fight was estimated to been around £5 million, close to £80 million current day cash at the time of writing in 2025. All in all, it’s fair to say the fight made a noise big enough to be heard throughout the world.
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