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James Cook was universally adored in boxing – his pursuit of the impossible dream will endure
James Cook was known and respected as one of the nicest men in the boxing business on both sides of the ropes.
His death last Saturday was greeted with a rare and sincere outpouring of heartfelt messages, genuine love and sorrow. In the modern business of boxing, it is impossible to find anybody with a bad word to say about Cook – he was universally adored.
Cook belonged to a different boxing world, a world where good fighters knew they would seldom get a chance and never get a break. Cook struggled for recognition as a boxer and chased a living away from his Hackney home in fights as the designated loser in Germany, Italy, France, Holland and Finland. He was robbed of money, robbed of decisions, but still he kept fighting against all odds.
The motto in boxing is simple and brutal: Have gloves, will travel. Cook was the king of the travelling fighters for a few years in the eighties. There were signs that he could beat the best prospects and compete with the best fighters, but the truth is that James Cook's face never fit. 'I'm too good looking for this business,' he joked.
Cook's win in 1986 over the prospect, Michael Watson, who was unbeaten in seven, is a prime example; Watson was still the star after the loss, Cook still an annoyance. The fight before Watson, Cook had lost in Amsterdam and in the fight after, he lost in France. It was the reality for a lot of invisible boxers.
'It was a tough business back then,' said Cook. 'It was hard to get a break and that is why I had to go overseas. I had to earn a living.'
Cook had been a professional for seven years, fought 19 times, losing seven when he got his chance at the British middleweight title. On that night in 1988 in Sheffield, he was stopped by the great Herol Graham. The best middleweights in Britain then, Watson and Nigel Benn, had no interest in fighting Graham; Cook dared to be great.
At that time, it was obvious just how decent Cook was. He was never bitter about missing out on the carnival of fights involving Benn, Watson and Chris Eubank. He never had an invite – he was not the type of man you invited to that type of jamboree. Cook was back on the road, but this time the small-hall circuit in Britain, after the Graham loss, back earning a living without a single complaint.
In 1990 he was given another shot at the British title, but he had to travel to Belfast to fight local idol, Sam Storey. It looked like a typical night on the road and against the odds for Cook; he stopped Storey in ten rounds, won the British super-middleweight title and then travelled to France to add the European version with a 12th round stoppage. James Cook was anonymous no more. Well, that was the sensible thinking.
In late April, a few days before the Conor Benn and Chris Eubank Jr fight, I spoke to Cook during that week of events. He was drained, weary, shrunken, but still the smiling and optimistic. He arrived one day, fresh from chemotherapy – I knew the signs, but James was not playing the cancer game. There was no searching for pity in his eyes. He had business on the night; he would be in the corner with Anthony Yarde. Let me tell you this now: James Cook did not play games.
I stood with Cook and Yarde and remembered a classic but lost night in British boxing. It was 1991 at York Hall and for some ridiculous reason, Cook was defending his European super-middleweight title at the tiny venue against Mark Kaylor, who had been one of the stars of the business and remains the last great East End boxing idol. In the modern game, that fight would be in front of 20,000 at the O2.
'It was just the way it was,' remembered Cook. Yarde listened and was stunned. On the night, Cook silenced Kaylor's faithful with a punch-perfect stoppage in the sixth round. Kaylor retired after the fight, Cook defended his European title at a leisure centre in Wandsworth in his next fight. A glance at Cook's record is a glance back at an anonymous time in British boxing for many men, who simply never had a break and had to struggle for every single tiny bit of recognition. Cook struggled, but he never moaned or complained.
In 1992 he took the money, went to France and lost the European title, then he regained his British super-middleweight title at a wave-pool centre at the Elephant and Castle in south London. At the same time, Benn and Eubank were making millions at the same weight.
James Cook fought for the last time at York Hall in 1994 when he lost his British title. And then the real work started on the safe side of the ropes at the Pedro Club, an old-fashioned youth club, on Hackney's Murder Mile.
On his commendation for his MBE in 2007, it said he had performed miracles on the streets of Hackney. And he had. 'The boxing gym gives them hope and they don't have a lot of hope,' he told me in 2019. 'They can see what boxing can do for a man – boxers have a good name in here.' Cook loved the Pedro, and it seems that every day was a brutal struggle for funding to keep the doors open and to keep his dreams alive. He was the man for the struggle - James Cook never turned away from any fight.
He was still part of that impossible dream circuit when he died last Saturday.
