When the gong sounded for round one, Bruce began the fight cautiously enough, avoiding close encounters with the much heavier London by dancing away from him, following the game plan Tom Hurst had worked out with him. But London seemed far from confident, crouched and lumbering with ponderous swings which Bruce evaded easily. As the film commentator noted, Bruce was ‘more upright, gloves well up, chin well tucked in’, and snapping straight lefts in reply that jabbed London’s face and sent his head back. According to the reporter from the News Chronicle, it was then that Bruce winked over London’s shoulder across at Nel Tarleton in his corner. Tarleton said afterwards: ‘It meant Bruce knew that the fight was his from that moment. I gave him that one-two punch. He possesses it naturally. I saw its possibilities when he came to me one day in my gym and I showed him how to develop it.’ Bruce tried it a few times in the opener, but the killer one-two was another five rounds away.
In the second, Bruce’s lefts kept jabbing with insistent regularity. He evaded a dangerous hook from London and scored a right cross in retaliation, backed up by another straight left. London tried to get Bruce into clinches which the referee had to break up. The same patterns recurred in the next two rounds, and the crowd must have begun to think they were in for a long haul.
But things hotted up in the fifth, which was the closest Bruce came to trouble. London rushed from his corner into the fray, seemingly determined to nail his opponent. London kept harrying him with attacks to the body and caught him with a big left punch to the side of the face, leaving a cut to the nose, followed by a left to the mouth, swelling his lip. London sensed his chance and followed through by driving Bruce into the ropes, and was still attacking to the body as the bell went. It took some of the wind from Bruce’s sails, slowing him up such that he looked tired going back to his corner, and even more so sat on his stool while his team worked on him. But we can see Tom Hurst talking fervently as he helps Bruce to a much needed swig of water, and whatever he said, it worked.
The climax came out of the blue two minutes into the sixth round. Bruce took the fight straight back at London, catching him with two heavy right hooks. And then he caught London with two short rights that sent him down on his back over the bottom rope, out of the ring, and although he got back up immediately, he was obviously hurt and dazed. Bruce knew it was his moment, and he took it: he hit London hard, a left and right, two lefts to the face, and then twice, with lightening right hooks on the chin, sending him crashing to the canvas. The crowd were already on their feet; the noise was unbelievable. London struggled to get up, even as far as his hands and knees, but the count beat him - he would say later that he couldn’t hear it for the roaring of the crowd.
(by Bruce Woodcock Jnr)
