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Cooney/Holmes 25 Years Later
25 years later, Holmes and Cooney remember fight that divided America
By TIM DAHLBERG, AP Sports Columnist
June 30, 2007
Gerry Cooney had just lost two points for hitting low, and both Larry Holmes and the desert heat had combined to sap his strength. Now, as the 10th round began, his manager leaned into the corner and urged him to fight even harder.
Amid the din of 25,000 people in the parking lot at Caesars Palace, Dennis Rappaport was playing the last card he had.
"America needs you," Rappaport told his fighter.
He wasn't far from the truth.
Back in Cooney's dressing room, a phone had been specially installed. The president of the United States was going to be calling to congratulate him if he won.
There was no phone in Holmes' dressing room.
"I was that close to getting that phone call," Cooney said, chuckling at the thought. "I might have become the vice president, who knows."
It was 25 years ago on a blisteringly hot night in Las Vegas, and Holmes was defending his heavyweight title against the big-punching Cooney in the richest fight of its time. The fight was an intriguing matchup of puncher versus boxer, but that wasn't why each fighter was making $10 million.
Holmes was the snarling black champion, unbeaten but unloved. Cooney, meanwhile, uncomfortably wore the mantle of the latest Great White Hope.
America may not have needed Gerry Cooney. But much of white America desperately wanted him to become the heavyweight champion.
If Holmes didn't understand that, he got the idea when Sports Illustrated put Cooney on the cover, with a picture of himself inside. Time Magazine didn't even bother with Holmes, putting Cooney and Sylvester Stallone on the cover together to preview the fight.
Wherever he went, Holmes ran into people telling him Cooney was going to be the new heavyweight champion.
"I was playing dice in the casino, just trying to relax, and people said that," Holmes said. "It's hard to play dice when you've got people telling you you're going to lose."
Holmes had helped stoke the racial tensions himself by saying if Cooney wasn't white he wouldn't have been getting the same purse as the undefeated champion. And while Cooney tried to deflect questions about race, members of his camp wore shirts that read "Not the White Man, but the Right Man."
It was serious and it was ugly, though the two laugh about it today. They're unlikely friends who only last week got together for lunch and a photo shoot commemorating the 25th anniversary of the fight.
"We were actually friends that day," Holmes said. "When the bell rang, I told Gerry, `Let's have a good fight."'
Cooney remembers it well.
"That's sportsmanship right there," he said.
Just getting the two fighters to the center of the ring was tough. Holmes had refused to leave his dressing room until Cooney had left his, and when he finally got into the ring had another surprise waiting.
Boxing tradition dictates that the champion is always introduced last. But this was Cooney's crowd, and Holmes was introduced first.
"By that time I just wanted to fight so it didn't really bother me," Holmes said. "I just wanted to get it over with."
Holmes dropped Cooney in the second round, but Cooney landed some good shots of his own -- though many were left hooks below the belt -- as the fight went on. He had perhaps his best round in the 10th after Rappaport urged him on, but Holmes came right back the next round to regain control of the fight.
"In the 10th round I kicked his butt and he came back in the 11th round like it was the first round," Cooney said. "I didn't know where that came from."
By the 13th round (title fights were 15 rounds in those days) Cooney was pretty much shot, and a series of right hands by Holmes sent him against the ropes. Referee Mills Lane seemed ready to stop it anyway when Cooney's trainer came into the ring and threw in the towel with eight seconds left in the round.
An emotional Cooney apologized afterward, but he had nothing to be sorry for. Holmes said Cooney didn't know it at the time, but he had him hurt during the fight.
The fans apparently weren't the only ones who wanted a white heavyweight champion. Two of the three judges would have had Cooney ahead after the 12th round if it weren't for the point deductions, something sports writers who were ringside found difficult to understand.
Cooney fought only five more times, retiring after being knocked out by Michael Spinks and George Foreman. He now lives in New Jersey, where he says he spars 30 to 40 rounds a week to keep in shape, is involved in helping former fighters, and plays a lot of golf.
Holmes, meanwhile, lives in his hometown of Easton, Pa., and has finally come to peace with himself over a long career which he felt was never fully appreciated by boxing fans.
He's always understood, though, why on that night he wasn't the star of the show.
"It wasn't about Larry Holmes," he said. "If I would have fought a brother I wouldn't have gotten the money I got. Give me 10 black guys and I make eight dollars.
"Give me Gerry Cooney and I make $10 million."
Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg@ap.org
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