Remembering Curtis Cokes (1937-2020): A Boxer For All Time

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By Anthony “Zute” George

Hall of Fame boxer Curtis Cokes died recently of heart failure at the age of 82. He was born in Dallas, Texas. Curtis Cokes won the welterweight championship in 1966. While I was not lucky enough to have seen Cokes fight live, I have watched whatever footage I can find on him, and, man, what a skilled boxer.

What I loved most about Cokes was his jab. He threw it in rapid-fire fashion, but it was a stiff jab. Indeed, a punch that would have the same effect as a lot of ‘power punches.’ Cokes ripped off his jab in an effortless manner and moved beautifully while throwing it. Making it an extremely difficult punch to time for his opponents. If you were lucky enough to time his jab, he would sneak a short-left hook behind it. Cokes even led with the left hook to be more diverse. Cokes was always in a position to land a hard punch on his opponent. He also loved throwing short, little, uppercuts on the inside with both hands.

A total nightmare to fight.

If it were not for Jose Napoles, we would be placing Curtis Cokes much higher in the welterweight rankings of all-time. Which is not much of a slight, as I think Jose Napoles was one of the two or three best welterweight fighters ever.
Fans also know Curtis Cokes from his beloved role of Earl, in the classic film Fat City. My personal favorite boxing movie of all-time, and, if I ever bothered to make a top 20 list of my favorite films, Fat City would undoubtedly be on it. Fat City is a movie about the underbelly of boxing, and, SPOILER ALERT, there is no miracle come from behind wins in this one.

Interestingly enough, while Fat City is very much a boxing movie, Curtis Cokes does not portray a boxer in it. One of the lighter scenes in the film, there were not many, was when Oma, played by Susan Tyrell, was discussing fighting, and sardonically said to Earl, ‘what do you know about it (fighting)? Curtis Cokes delivers his line, ‘not much at all,’ perfectly. Yeah right.

Most people know the character Archie Bunker, but some people might not know just how big a liberal Carroll O’ Connor was in real life. When asked about his decision to play such a bigot/racist in Bunker, he commented that he wanted to really challenge himself by playing a character so distant from his real core. Indeed, not many people have met that acting challenge better than O’ Connor did as Archie Bunker, but, as Earl in Fat City, Curtis Cokes at least equaled such diversity. I am not sure why, but Curtis Cokes never acted in a film again.

Not many people did it better than Curtis Cokes with the boxing gloves either, or, judging from the praise on social media, as a human being as well.

You will be missed.

Anthony “Zute” George is the Author of Tough Man: The Greg Haugen Story, a new boxing book that covers the skilled champion from Auburn, Washington, as well as the scope of the times during his days of pugilism.

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