Exclusive: Author Anthony Cocks talks ‘The Brawl at the Sydney Opera House (And Other Aussie Boxing Yarns)’

For as long as prize fights have been made, the sport of boxing has been chock full of stories. The sport’s individuality and its ‘do or die’ nature mean the words spoken by combatants, participants, and pundits take on a life of their own, entering a form of pugilistic folklore.

Some stories need to be told. Centuries of exploitation, crippling fighter health, and corruption that evoke many deep emotions are tales that form an important part of the boxing landscape; their telling serving as an industry safeguard. Then there are those that need not be told again: the anecdotes about the all-time great champions of yesteryear, while fascinating and crucial to the sport’s literary canon, are recycled and retold to the point that they begin to lose meaning and symbolism.

Taking up a majority of this broad spectrum, however, is the plethora of stories of fighters that go untold, lost to the sands of time no sooner than their careers end, often in favour of the aforementioned more popular narratives. To long-time Australian boxing writer turned author Anthony Cocks, it’s these yarns (to use a native colloquialism) that are the meat on the bones of the sport’s rich history.

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A regular at ringside for much of this century, Cocks’ writing exploits have gone hand in hand with a steady cultivation of recollections from the nation’s boxers, from world champions to preliminary fighters, of generations past. It’s here that the genesis of his new book, The Brawl at the Sydney Opera House (And Other Aussie Boxing Yarns), was formed.

“I really wanted to look at the stories less told,” Cocks told FightsATW.com. “I was looking at stories that were familiar, uncovering new bits and pieces and looking at them in a new light. That was something I was always keen to do.

“There’s a whole bunch of hidden gems in terms of both fights and rivalries behind them that often get overlooked through the passage of time.”

Narrowing the focus, the text is limited to a period in Australian boxing when the sport shifted. By Christmas of 1976, Lionel Rose, the indigenous champion who had become a household name in 1968 when he, at just 19 years old, went to Japan and defeated Fighting Harada to claim the world bantamweight title, was done. Television coverage dwindled, and TV Ringside, Channel 7’s regular boxing broadcast that had been hugely popular just a few years prior, was discontinued.

Darker still, the high-profile in-ring deaths of Roko Spanja and Albert Jangalay played a massive role in changing perceptions of boxing amongst the public. Prize fighting, as it was known, was fluctuating rapidly and trending in a negative direction.

As a result, boxing shied away from the previously bright lights, put on the sporting back burner until the late 1980s and early 1990s when a crop of all-time greats headlined by Jeff Fenech and Kostya Tszyu helped to re-capture some mainstream appeal. With almost a decade to dust off, the innate storyteller in Cocks came to the fore.

“That era’s the one that people just a bit older than me – ten years, twenty years older than me – fought in or were around for. I’d hear stories from these blokes at ringside and at the gyms and things like that,” he said. “So it was an era I was familiar with through these people’s stories, and it actually surprised me that there didn’t seem to be much put down on paper about it. I took up the mantle and went from there.”

As might be expected from a sport notorious for the bizarre, and particularly one now hiding away relative to its previous lofty position in the national consciousness, the years covered by Cocks saw its fair share of wild nights.

The fight that lends itself to the title of the book, the Australian super welterweight title contest between Alex Temelkov and Ken Salisbury, known to all as The Brawl at the Sydney Opera House for the near riot the action brought to the landmark building, itself speaks to this. Then there’s the tale of ‘Irish’ Mick O’Brien, the Cork-born Australian Olympian who chucked in the prize-ring for promoting scraps in a mud wrestling one.

That’s not to say that Australian boxing didn’t have its share of sporting stars and world-class fighters in the era. Boxers like Paul Ferreri and Hector Thompson, two combatants who may have been champions in any other era had they not run into legends Carlos Zarate and Roberto Duran respectively, are covered in the book. So too is Graeme ‘Porky’ Brooke, the former commonwealth lightweight champion forced to retire when controversial medical test results saw his right to box revoked at just age 22.

The era also produced one of the greatest world championship fights the country has seen in the 1985 IBF super featherweight title clash between Lester Ellis and Barry Michael. Both men appear in chapters dedicated to them, just not for this bout. Had he done so, Cocks feels that he may have drifted from his purpose.

“With Lester and Barry, that fight fits into that time period, but really, what am I going to write about that fight that hasn’t already been said?” he said. “So with that in mind, I looked at the Ash Wednesday fight with Barry and Frank Ropis, which has its own history and backstory and trying conditions.

“I interviewed Frank Ropis in his front room for an hour and a half, just standing there drinking a cup of tea and eating biscuits for 90 minutes. He showed me the way Barry used to turn him, and he just went ‘bang!’ and gave me a little tap in the ribs. I went, ‘What a moment,’ and let me tell you, even at his age he’s still got some pop in his shots.

“I also looked at Lester’s first world title fight with Hwan Kil Yuh and how that all got made, the fight itself and the immediate aftermath there.”

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Thanks to Cocks’ creed, there has been an enrichment of the way in which both men’s careers can be remembered, that being that each should not be defined by the other. More people now know of Michael and Ropis battling it out in temperatures of over 40 degrees celsius while much of Melbourne’s surrounds were engulfed in bushfires, as well as Ellis’ journey to a brothel with the opponent he’d beaten for the strap just hours before.

The same can be said for the recently departed Tony Mundine. Often defined by his 1974 loss to WBA world middleweight champion Carlos Monzon in Argentina, many forget the host of world-class competitors Mundine battled during his 96-fight career. Casting light on his epic trilogy with former commonwealth light heavyweight titlist Steve Aczel helps to rewrite an otherwise popular narrative.

Conceding that the contents of the book are niche in scope, Cocks’ one hope is that the countless hours of transcribing interviews, sifting through limited contemporary reports and watching grainy video footage have led to a text where “each story stands on its own two legs.” There is simply no doubting that they do just that.

Yet it might be better said that the 15 chapters of The Brawl at the Sydney Opera House (And Other Aussie Boxing Yarns) do more than simply walk among the many other boxing stories kept alive by print. They’ve helped to reinvigorate the soul of a bygone era.

The Brawl at the Sydney Opera House (And Other Aussie Boxing Yarns) is available to purchase on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com.au/Brawl-Sydney-Opera-House-Aussie/dp/B0H1H7SC66

Liahm O'Brien

Liahm O’Brien is a boxing writer based in Australia. His work focuses on all levels of fighting, with interviews from boxers making their way in the game, to those competing for titles on major shows across the world. He has written for local online publications, The Inner Sanctum and Fight News Australia, and is a regular guest on The Unofficial Scorecard Podcast.

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