Curtis Cokes, one of the top welterweights of the 1960s and ultimately a Hall of Famer, has died of heart failure after a week in hospice care, The Dallas Morning News is reporting. The Dallas native was 82.
Cokes, a slick counter puncher, defeated Manuel Gonzalez by a unanimous decision to win the vacant WBA 147-pound title in August 1966 and added the WBC belt when he outpointed Jean Josselin three months later, which earned him recognition as the No. 1 welterweight in the world.
He was 29 and eight years into his career when he beat Gonzalez to win the title.
“Curtis wasn’t a punk kid who won the title,” referee Dickie Cole, who worked the second title fight, told The News in 2013. “He was almost 30 years old and had paid his dues. He struggled to get there. Dallas never did him any favors. And there he was with that hammer he had for a right hand, winning as our champion.”
The great Jose Napoles took Cokes’ titles by 13th-round stoppage in April 1969 and then won the rematch two months later by a 10th-round knockout. Cokes (62-14-4, 30 KOs) retired in his corner in each fight.
Cokes, who moved up to middleweight after the Napoles fights, continued to fight until 1972 but never again challenged for a world title. He was 35 when he called it quits.
He was never tremendously popular among fans because of his style but, he told The News, he was OK with that.
“The name of the sport is boxing, not fighting,” Cokes said in 2013. “You can play football, you can play basketball, but you can’t play boxing. It’s serious business where you can get hurt every time you step into the ring. It’s an art to hit and not be hit.”
And, as Cole pointed out, he wasn’t without power. Thirty knockouts attest to that.
“He wanted the other guy to make a mistake. And when he unloaded that right hand, he was devastating,” longtime Dallas-area boxing official Steve Crosson said.
Cokes was a gifted all-around athlete, earning all-state honors in basketball and baseball in high school. He tried out for the Brooklyn Dodgers as a shortstop but was denied because he was too small. He reportedly weighed only 126 pounds.
He first took up boxing at the local YMCA when he was 14 but began to pursue it as a career after the baseball tryout, a time when African-Americans didn’t have the same opportunities as their white counterparts.
Still, he emerged as one of the greatest fighters ever produced in Texas. He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2003.
After his career, he owned or co-owned a restaurant, construction company, nightclub and landscaping company but also struggled financially at times. He also trained fighters, including Ike Ibeabuchi, Kirk Johnson and Quincy Taylor.
“I have done things my way my whole life because that’s the way it had to be,” he told The News in 2013. “On the other hand, I never had to take orders from anyone. And I think I’ve put up a good fight.”
