Bruce Woodcock

[Guest Old Canny Street Kid]

I know Bruce Woodcock was not from Sheffield, but as he came from Doncaster and achieved a spell of national fame in the early post-war era he got a lot of publicity in the Sheffield Star and Telegraph. Has anyone any info about his fights, and especially his 1946 fight with Freddie Mills?

[Guest Old Canny Street Kid]

I know Bruce Woodcock was not from Sheffield, but as he came from Doncaster and achieved a spell of national fame in the early post-war era he got a lot of publicity in the Sheffield Star and Telegraph. Has anyone any info about his fights, and especially his 1946 fight with Freddie Mills?

Bruce Woodcock

Born: 18th January 1921, Doncaster. Died: 21st December 1997, aged 76.

Fights: 39. Won 35, lost 4. Career span 1942-50.

British and Empire heavyweight champion 1945-50; European heavyweight champion 1946-49.

Britain’s boxing hero of the years immediately following the Second World War, Bruce Woodcock was a decent boxer with a fair dig, but wasn’t good enough to survive in the higher class. He is fondly remembered as Britain’s best and bravest heavyweight hope in the 40s and early 50s.

In July 1945 he defeated the current champion Jack London at White Hart Lane to take the British and heavyweight crowns. He won by a KO in round six after having London down three times in that round.

Woodcock went to New York to make his American debut in Madison Square Garden against New Yorker Tami Mauriello, and, after being stunned by a clash of heads, was knocked out in the fifth round.

Yet a fortnight later he outpointed Freddie Mills over 12 rounds at Harringay.

Two months later he KO’d Albert Renet of France in six rounds to become European champion.

Immensely popular, he then enjoyed one of his best wins when he wore down the world light-heavyweight champion Gus Lesnevish for an eighth round stoppage before a sell-out crowd at Harringay in Sept 1946.

However, Woodcock was badly hurt in a seven rounds mauling by the big and powerful Joe Baksi at Harringay in April 1947. (Baksi had beaten Freddie Mills, the leading British light-heavyweight, in six rounds in London in November 1946.) Woodcock showed great courage before the referee stopped it in round seven. It was said that in a later era the fight would have been ended in round one. The pounding Woodcock took was terrible. A right almost had Bruce out in round one (he went down three times in that round, and twice in the second round) and, when it was all over his left eye was seriously damaged. With hindsight he should have been taken straight to hospital. Instead he was driven home to Yorkshire. When the eye showed no improvement, he went to hospital, where doctors discovered he was in danger of going blind, and they operated. He was in hospital a month. “I had a detached retina,” he said. “A specialist told me I must never box again, but what could I do? I had a young family, and it was the only way I knew of making money.” He also broke his jaw.

The film of Woodcock’s fight with Baksi is chilling. Woodcock said later: “I couldn’t see properly. The whole vast arena seemed to be swimming round me in a crazy whirlpool of lights and heads and white shirts…I lost all sense of balance and distance, all count of time. I don’t remember going down but Tom says I was on my back, looking vaguely up at the roof.”

He returned to the ring in September 1948 with an effortless four-round knockout of a reluctant Lee Orma (real name Frank Czajewski, from Chicago), who was pilloried for his lack of fight.

In December 1948 Woodcock fought Lee Savold for the first time. It says much for the popularity of boxing in England in those days that when Savold arrived at Waterloo Station in London, he was welcomed by huge crowds, who ignored film stars Virginia Mayo and Joan Caulfield, who also stepped off the train. The fight was billed as an eliminator for the heavyweight title. Before a sell-out crowd at Harringay, Woodcock won on a low-blow disqualification in the fourth round.

After a successful Empire title defence in Johannesburg against Johnny Ralph came a fourteenth round KO win (to take the vacant British and European and Empire heavyweight titles) over the reigning world light-heavyweight champion Freddie Mills before a 46,000 crowd at White City, London, on June 2nd 1949.

In 1950 promoter Jack Solomons declared a June 6th fight between Woodcock and Lee Savold (it was their second meeting) a world heavyweight title fight following the retirement, fifteen months earlier, of Joe Louis. Solomons canvassed and received support from the British Board of Boxing Control and from the New York State Commission.

Solomons was foiled when Savold (born in Minnesota, and of Norwegian descent) won because of a dreadful curving cut above Woodcock’s left eye that curtailed the fight at the end of the fourth round. Blood cascaded down Woodcock’s face from the gash, and his nose and mouth bled, too. This time the crowd at White City was estimated at 60,000. Savold’s claim that he had won the world title was never accepted in the US. (Savold lost the remaining two fights of his career, against 37 year-old Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano.)

Wooodcock’s finale came when he retired in the eleventh round against Jack Gardner after his one good eye was swollen shut during their fight on 14th November 1950, and he gave up boxing.

Eventually, Woodcock did go blind in that left eye, and lost interest in boxing, but he remained a down-to-earth, honest man who preferred a quiet homely existence to the bright lights. He ran a pub in Doncaster for some years.

He died on 21st December 1997 aged 76.

Can anyone add any more --and a picture, perhaps?