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Seen below is the Cockfighter Of The Year award that Frank Mansfield was so passionately pursuing throughout the film.
Oates accepted the role of cockfighter Frank Mansfield on the heels of one of his most notable roles. In 1973, director Sam Peckinpah hired Oates to star in Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia. Oates played the role of Bennie, a down on his luck American expatriate in Mexico who accepts the gruesome assignment of proving that a local gangster has died by agreeing to dig him up and retrieve his head.
In her 2009 Warren Oates biography (Warren Oates: A Wild Life), author Susan Compo writes:
On July 30, Oates and Peckinpah left for Chicago. There the film (Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia) would be well received, enabling Oates to leave for Atlanta, where he would attend the premiere of Cockfighter. Held at Roswell Village Twin Cinemas, the event - understandably picketed by the ASPCA - was, perversely, a benefit for the Roswell High School Boosters Club. The boosters made two thousand dollars for their cause, and Box Office reported that "Warren Oates, star of the film which was made in the Roswell vicinity, was a popular figure at the premiere, as were associate producer Sam Gelfman and Charles Willeford, the University of Miami professor who wrote the film's script." Roger Corman was unable to attend.
For anyone interested in more information on the life and times of actor Warren Oates, I highly recommend this book.