K.O.W. – The Casablanca Clouter
I heard the name “Marcel Cerdan” quite a few times on Saturday, as the Mormeck/Bell fight was held in the arena in Levallois that is named after the great Algerian-born French champion. Cerdan was a heroic fighter with knockout power in both hands, and it seemed to me time that we gave him a little love in the Knockout of the Week forum.
Of course, The Casablanca Clouter is most famous for two fights – his destruction of Tony Zale in 1948 to become world middleweight champion (you can watch the final rounds of that fight here) and his bout with Jake LaMotta a year later, when he retired due to a dislocated shoulder and lost the title to the Bronx Bull, a fight that is depicted in Raging Bull.
Sadly, that was Cerdan’s last fight. While flying to the States for his rematch with LaMotta in October of ’49, his plane went down and everyone aboard was killed. Cerdan remains a beloved figure in France today, for his furious fighting stlye and for the glamourous life that he led, which included an affair with the uber-chanteuse Edith Piaf (that’s the two of them together on the left).
For our Knockout of the Week, I’ve chosen the Clouter’s one-round destruction of Jose Ferrer in 1942 for the European welterweight title. By my count, Ferrer goes down six times in the round before the killing blow, and each time due to a perfectly-placed right hook. Watching this, I can’t help but think that the Spaniard’s corner might have done well to urge their man to take an eight-count here and there during that onslaught of knockdowns. But then, such is the clarity of hindsight.
March 20th, 2007 at 1:08 am
The wildest thing about his very public affair with Edith Piaf is that it happened when he was married with kids and stuff. The guy was gangsta. And he was runner up to the title of “Athlete of the century” after Zinedine Zidane and before Pelé, Platini and Muhammad Ali.
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