The late sportscaster Howard Cosell took his place over the weekend among boxing immortals when he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, NY.
Cosell passed away in 1995 at the age of 77. He was certainly one of the most polarizing and controversial journalists of my lifetime and the 20th Century.
You either loved him or despised him. There was no in between.
Cosell was known for championing the political cause of Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali who refused American military induction on his religious grounds and broadcasting the big fights of the 1970s and early 1980s.
Cosell helped make ABC’s and the National Football League’s gamble with Monday Night Football a ritual to this day.
Cosell’s last big telecast regarding pro boxing was the dismal fight between heavyweight champion Larry Holmes and challenger Randy “Tex” Cobb from the Houston Astrodome on November 26, 1982. Cosell was continuously calling for referee Steve Crosson to stop the fight because he thought Cobb was defenseless and being cut to ribbons by the Holmes jab. Holmes scored a unanimous 15 – round decision.
During the broadcast, Cosell famously said, “I wonder if that referee is conducting an advertisement for the abolition of the very sport he is a part of?”
Before that Cosell said in Kingston, Jamaica in 1973 while watching a young George Foreman drop heavyweight champion Joe Frazier the famous words “Down goes Frazier. Down Goes Frazier. Down Goes Frazier.”
Cosell’s grandson, Colin Cosell, accepted the honor for him posthumously and said, ” We’re thankful that the work he loved doing continues to be recognized and his legacy lives on.”
I don’t know how Cosell would have played in the pay-per-view world of today but I expect he would have been saddened by the state of the heavyweight division and been fired quite a few times.
