Rating Gerry Cooney

[althetruthhindley]

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

[amat]

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.