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Can some of the older wiser heads give me their opinion on the fighting Irishman ?
His record suggests he was quite usefull at the timeof the stoppage against Larry Holmes he wasn't far behind and had 3 points taken off for Low blows .
I don't know why he is considered such a laughing stock ( Otto knocked him out in the Simpsons)
I'd rank him right between ATG's Frank Bruno and Yanqui Diaz. LOL
well i wasnt nowhere near in era of cooney but heres my two cents he done good job on norton good power decent chin but he only ever used his left hardly ever used his right scores suggest cooney was doing quite well against holmes thats not really true he had few good rounds but really he got quite bad beating which you would see in hbo legendary nights after holmes loss he went right down hill not bad fighter in his time but he was bit one dimensional and like i said only ever used his left hardly ever and i mean ever used his rightQuote:
Originally Posted by Swashbuckling Gordy
Cooney was pretty good fighter who was managed very poorly. He was totally rushed and he wasn't ready to fight Holmes at that time. The beating and humiliation he took that night killed his career. There was so much hype around that fight, so much pressure, and he couldn't really recover from that. Had he been allowed to develop more slowly and not gotten overhyped, he could have had a much more successful. I'm not sure he could have ever beaten Holmes, though, even with more time, but he had no business fighting Holmes at that point. So he gets a bad rap, as being an overhyped great-white-hope. I guess he kinda was, but he had tons of talent. I feel bad for the guy.
I dont think he was humiliated. He fought his best and showed a lot of heart. He was just overmatched but it wasnt like a Winky-Tito type fight. That was humiliaton. Cooney had heart and power, but i dont know about tons of talentQuote:
Originally Posted by SeanE
Nowadays he doesnt get the credit he deserves, good fighter
Your right...Gerry would throw a mean Left hook, brilliant puncher in his prime. had good hand speed for big fellow. and could also take a good punch .Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrap
Cooney was a good fighter that got beaten by an ATG in Holmes...Funny years after Cooney said that they altered their fight plan to last 15 rounds...so instead of being the seek and destroy guy that wacked out Lyle and Norton, Cooney tried to become a boxer and Holmes made him look silly...Honestly looking at Cooney's career he caught Norton, Lyle and Young on their downsides, if you look at his other opponents its as hard to find a recognizable name as it is to find some he beat with a winning record ....Cooney was a B level fighter with great power nothing more...
Its often the way ! I saw him blitz out Kenny Norton and i was impressed with his handspeed like you say Norton was a bit vulnerable but he certainly connected .Quote:
Originally Posted by The Promoter
I think Holmes was the best heavy of alltime .
Looking back, with 25 years of perspective, it doesn't look as humiliating, but at the time, it was. There was so much pressure and hype around the fight. Lots of racism and race baiting on both sides. To Cooney, it was humiliating, even if it shouldn't have been humilating. Listen, the guy made a good showing against a top 5 alltime Heavyweight. How many people can say that?Quote:
Originally Posted by BoomBoom
At that time Holmes was peaking and it was a good fight, been interesting to see a prime Coonet v Klits wouldnt put my money on Vlad Vitali even money
im big holmes fan imo that was holmes last excellent performance except for beating he done on cobb after but after that he seemed to go bit down hill like against tim witherspoon even though witherspoon performed excellent holmes seemed to me he wasnt as sharp and after that he went down hillQuote:
Originally Posted by Scrap
If Cooney was a black guy, he would not have got a title shot at that stage of his development, nor would there be much memory of him as a fighter (sad, but true)
At the time, he was freaking huge - I think he was 6'6" or 6'7", so there was a certain amount of freak show hype around him, and his handlers also managed to tap into that American love for the Irish - and they did market him appropriately. I definitely agree he was carefully matched, overhyped and then fed to Holmes before someone else found him out.
Undoubtedly, Cooney had power, he had a big big left hook and therefore was pretty eye-catching at times. Probably his best win was the Norton fight ........ but Ken did always freeze when he fought big punchers, and he was pretty shot by the time he was in front of Gerry. Technically, poor old Gerry was very limited, he pawed with his jab, was pretty upright and didn't throw his right properly.
Having said that, Gerry himself didn't realise this and was therefore a better fighter than he appeared to be. Also, I don't think anyone could question his heart or his desire - Cooney did not cheat his audience, ever.
So, should Cooney be mentioned in the same breath as Louis, Holmes, Ali etc ....... no, absolutely not. Should be be bracketed with the Walcott's, the Patterson's ....... I don't really think so either although he would always have a punchers chance.
Where does he stand against other actual 'world' champions - Bruce Seldon, Mike Tate, Frank Bruno, John Ruiz, Oleg Maskaev? I think Gerry, limited as he was, would have got past those guys. I think he would beat today's Briggs, and be competitive against Valuev.
A decent honest pro. Hope he is in a happy retirement.
xFor a big man he had a good jab, but couldnt match Holmes who could. It was the jab that won the fight under Holmes terms other than that good post cc
Fair point about the jab. I agree than not many people ever outjabbed Holmes and a lot of Cooney's fights were blowouts, without jabs ......... but I will accept the point that Gerry could jab when he wanted to (and when he remembered to, apart from transparently setting himself up for the hook).Quote:
Originally Posted by Scrap
Cheers mate - have one back.
:coolclick:
How good was Gerry Cooney ?
To sum up he was better than The Beast from the East !!!
Him and wlad wud have been a good watch hehe :)
Cooney honestly could have been so much more then he was.
Signing with those two clowns Mike Jones and Dennis Rappaport was the worst thing he ever did. They brought him up way to fast. He was fighting on HBO and on TV with the little dancing leprachauns and all that and honestly he had the natural skills, he was big and everything but he wasn't ready for the big time. He was brought along much ot fast. He had about as devastating of left hook as there ever has been in boxing, he was huge, had a good chin and it really took the best of Larry Holmes to eek out a victory. But Cooney just wasn't mentally ready for it.
The fight was HUGE, Rappaport and Jones of course played the race card for all it was worth which he was never comfortable with. KKK rallies were actually held supporting Cooney before the fight and Las Vegas police received threats that if the fight was a go that Holmes would be killed immediately by sniper fire. And of course Cooney got backlash from that. And in what was a HUGE fight for the time, he put up a good fight but he just wasn't ready to go the distance. He tired out in round 9 and was being outworked by Holmes up until the corner stopped the fight.
And then he took a break from boxing, a whole year then got injured training and when he came back he just wasn't the same fighter. He was never in to good of shape, fell into throwing one punch at a time and only about 20 punches a round. Watching him versus Norton and him versus Spinks is just night and day. He wasn't the same fighter.
He is a fighter who had a ton of potential and you can see it in the Lyle and Young fights, had a left hook to die for but was moved up to fast by two jackasses in Jones and Rappaport. Given some time, with that left hook and his size, he could have really been something. He isn't ranked very high because well, he just didn't accomplish much and he is made a laughing stock because he was a bust.
Recently he did an interview with Cigar Afficionado Magazine and it really went in depth and he was really candid on how his career went wrong and all that. It makes for a good read.