Had Gerry Conney beat Holmes what would he be viewed as if that was his last win.

Cooney never beat a genuine contender.
He maybe beat a couple of fringe contender journeymen, a couple of has-beens. There's nothing in his win column to justify how high he was ranked.

 

Agree John. As is the case with just about any fighter, there are always some who will raise them to the stars and beyond. But I think the vast majority view Gerry Cooney as a cheap hype job who had next to no fighting ability and that isn't the reality. I've even seen some who have picked journeyman and obscure fringe guys to beat him. Once a few years ago and on another forum, some guy favored Jeff Sims over Cooney.

 

A hype job but certainly not a cheap one.

 

His rating was a bit inflated for the Holmes fight but that's about it. I don't think he was that much of a hype job. He certainly looked menacing and destructive leading up to that fight while Holmes had struggled with lesser opponents.

 

Had Holmes struggled with lesser opponents ? Which ones ?

 

Who was Mike Weaver going into the Holmes fight? He was a 19-8 fringe guy who gave Larry fits. How about Renaldo Snipes who arguably got gifts against Coetzee and Gregory yet put Holmes on the deck. Norton was getting on in years and fought Holmes fifteen hard rounds. He was admittedly further diminished against Cooney but also only lasted 54 seconds. Shavers very nearly KO'd Holmes just months before losing to both Cobb and Mercado.. See where I'm going?

 

I don't think they were "lesser" fighters than Cooney.
If you mean lesser than Holmes, yes.

 

There was no reason to think that any of those ( with the exception of Norton ) were better than Cooney going into those bouts. And in truth some of them weren't. I don't think Snipes was a better fighter. The 1978 version of Norton who fought Holmes might very well have lost to Cooney as well, and Shavers might have too. Weaver is the only one who I might comfortably pick as being better than Gerry, and that sure as hell wasn't the reason why he was selected as one of Larry's opponents. He was supposed to be an easy stay busy fight.

 

In June 1982 it would have been reasonable to think Snipes lesser than Cooney, yes.

 

People in 1982 didn't have the advantage of hindsight that you now have, which is how hype jobs are made. All they had to work with was what they had seen to that point, and cooney was doing better work and looking better in the ring than the vast majority of Holmes' challengers at the time.

 

But not better than the ones you mentioned, apart from Snipes.

Weaver had proven himself since the Holmes fight against some top fighters. That basically explained why he'd been such a surprisingly tough challenger, he raised his game.
Norton was still a top fighter in 1978, maybe the #1 in the world, and people had not forgotten that.
Shavers in 1979 was a killer puncher and coming off a 1st round KO of a better version of Norton than the one Cooney met a couple of years later. Shavers really ended Norton as a top-flight heavyweight, Norton was lucky to get past Scott LeDoux in his next fight.

I'm not really using hindsight. I'm sticking to what would have been reasonable perception on the eve of the Holmes-Cooney fight.
Holmes was quite a clear favourite anyway.
Yes, it was fair enough for some to think (or hope) Cooney could raise his game, which he did. But he didn't really deserve to be rated as an outstanding contender, he was severely unproven.

 

Weavers improvement post Holmes had absolutely nothing to do with why he got that shot in the first place.. Zero. Its also questionable to me how Bob Arum talked the WBA into fighting Tillis instead of Cooney who was ranked higher. Norton had received a dubious decison against young right before the Holmes fight, who Cooney battered the hell out of later. Shavers blew hot and cold his entire career and his only notable wins were hasbeens similar to Cooney's victims, but minus the losses to guys like Stallings, Stander, etc.. Say what you want about Norton, Young, Lyle, Denis, etc. But there weren't too many heavys in the world who were still better than those guys in 1980 and even fewer who could have done to them what Gerry did. There were many who thought that Cooney could dethrone Holmes and wasn't entirely unreasonable to believe that it COULD have happened at the time.

 

This isn't what we were talking about.
I haven't questioned Cooney getting a shot.
I'm just saying by 1982 it wouldn't have been seen as a particularly bad thing that Holmes struggled with Weaver.
It's not like people would say "he struggled with journeyman Weaver" in 1982, when there was mounting evidence that Weaver was a good fighter anyway, having defeated Tate and Coetzee.

Perhaps I'm confused as to what you were trying to say in the first place.
I'm not sure I see the link between Cooney being rated highly and Holmes "struggling with lesser fighters" anyway.

You'll have to ask Bob.

Ocasio beat Young twice too.

Norton, Young, Holmes, Shavers were rated as the top fighters when Leon Spinks beat Muhammad Ali.
I don't know what else to say. The context is out there, the timelines, the reason Young and Norton were rated higher in 1977 than in 1979, 1980, 1981 etc.
We can argue timelines and whatever to show how Cooney's wins over Young and Norton were a little past the sell by date, but you know all this.
It seems a bit pointless.

Yeah, and Larry Holmes was/is considered a cut above Earnie Shavers, clearly.

Earnie Shavers had KO1 Norton in 1979
Lynn Ball had TKO2 Lyle in 1979
Ossie Ocasio had twice outpointed Young in 1978-'79

I have nothing to say about John "Dino" Denis.

I agree.

 

Really? Cooney certainly proved himself against obscure fringe guys, he ate them up.

 

Indeed