[Rocco Del Sesto]

The turn into 1946 saw some reshaping of the heavyweight ranks.

NBA announced ratings of Jan 15:
Joe Louis, Champion
Billy Conn, Logical Contender
Outstanding boxers listed were:
Tami Mauriello
Jimmy Bivins
Honorable Mentions:
Lee Oma
Jersey Joe Walcott
Elmer Ray
Bruce Woodcock
Arturo Godoy
Joey Maxim
Johnny Flynn
Lee Savold

Around the same time we have Ring Magazines annual rankings Feb 1946:
Heavyweights
Joe Louis, Champion
1. Billy Conn
2. Tami Mauriello
3. Jimmy Bivins
4. Elmer Ray
5. Bruce Woodcock
6. Lee Oma
7. Freddie Schott
8. Arturo Godoy
9. Jersey Joe Walcott
10. Joe Baksi

We see British Heavyweight Bruce Woodcock bumping up into these rankings. A Large part doing as he won the British and Commonwealth heavyweight Titles in 1945 defeating Jack London.

Bruce Woodcock - HW - England
Career Record: W35(KO 31) / L4 (KO 4) / D0

TITLES:
BBBofC British Heavyweight Title
EBU Light-heavyweight Title
Commonwealth Heavyweight Title
EBU Heavyweight Title
BBBofC Northern Area Light-heavyweight Title

Unknown information has been left blank.

Website included has good article on life and career of Woodcock.Notes at the end of the article that he appeared on the cover of Ring Magazine in October 1945 and that he was a skilled and aggressive fighter with a great punch but he tended to be small for a heavyweight and he was prone to cutting.

An article from the Gettyburg Times, 7/17/1945 discussed the upcoming fight in Britain for the UK Commonwealth and British Heavyweight Titles. Jack London, the current titleholder was facing Bruce Wookcock. Backers of the 24 year old railroad worker, Woodcock were looking for this fight to help take Wookcock to the international scene in the US to contend for the world heavyweight crown. His 6th round KO of London helped do that. This would propel Woodcock into the NBA and Ring Magazine rankings in early 1946.

Found a short newspaper clip on the internet from The Maple Leaf dated 4/29/46 about Woodcock getting ready to fight Tami Mauriello at Madison Square Garden on May 13th of that year. Article mentions that Woodcock like to use a 16-pound sledge hammer for striking huge blocks of wood as part of his training.

I did some bio updating of Bruce's file. Play testing his TBCB3 rating I found very good replay results so with Bruce did not see making any changes. Sorry If I don't come in with some big rerating of some of the fighters. Hope you enjoy even just the revisit of them and any new bio info I can dig up on them.