Quote Originally Posted by BoomBoom
Quote Originally Posted by SeanE
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 talent
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?