Very good fighter at his best. Very dangerous with his power and willingness to get in close to use it. It's unfortunate he he ruined himself after the Holmes fight because he still could've done very well with most of the other heavyweights around. This might be a controversial opinion, but I think if he had kept his head on straight and hadn't been drinking and partying like a fiend prior to Spinks, he would've won the fight.
I think that inactivity was the nail in Gerry's coffin, my friend. I think so, too. Spinks was no heavyweight, and I think that GC stoppage was almost entirely Gerry's doing. I think Foreman still would have massacred him, though Gerry fell down when he got hit very hard...Holmes made a mistake in the second round of their fight (he always was just a tiny bit too cautious for his own good) by letting Gerry off the hook. Cooney was done in that second round imo. It is to GC's great credit that he gave Larry a fight after that, but I think the former was only two flush right hands away from being stopped early in that fight. I mean, to me that fight was just before LH's decline, and he looked terrific dismantling Gerry. But he shouldn't have let him off that easy.
He didn't have the best managers to get the most out of his ability. The drugs and alcohol play the biggest part in Jerry's downfall
Gerry Cooney and John Grady are the authors. The title is Gentleman Gerry, A Contender in the Ring, A Champion in Recovery.
Great HBO boxing docu-series called Legendary Nights: Tale of Holmes-Cooney. Larry said he got hurt bad with a shot to the body & said thank goodness the bell sounded. Holmes broke him down & showed the disparity of skill Geryy lacked, but felt compelled to say had that bodyshot that sent him to the ropes occurred a minute previous....we may have had the Great White Hope (expose) Holmes.
Round 4. Cooney vs. Holmes was a pretty close fight until about round 9 when Cooney began to tire. Holmes for his part was extremely tough. Had this fight taken place two years later, maybe Cooney wins it. Holmes was still in his prime, though would slip a bit soon in 1984 and 1985
Cooney does not win it earlier. Worse outcome. Larry's form was much better in that 79 and 1980 timeframe. That version gets Gerry out of there in the 2nd after the knockdown. Holmes would have finished him and Cooney did not have the defense to prevent it.
Cooneys whole team was bad. They turned down too many fights which severely hurt his already fragile confidence. If he had signed with someone like the Duvas with Benton as trainer he would have been the best HW after Holmes I
I think it might have had to do both with what you mentioned, plus Larry really did get overly cautious as he got older...such cautiousness was a big variable in his losses to Spinks (he just didn't get off first anywhere near enough). Considering Larry's resilience, it is strange that he was patient to a fault (I personally think he did the same thing with Berbick...he had him seriously shaken a couple times in that fight and kind of let it go). That said, I'm glad the Cooney/Holmes fight went on after the 2nd round both because it was a very good fight and because it showcased Larry just before his powers began to decline.
There's a quote Ray Robinson that speaks volumes to your statement. In terms of losing skills/decline he stated the boxer feels the decline before others see it. He said something like; "young fighters throw with inspiration & youthful zeal. But as you get older, you begin to think your punches, thus reaching into the library of the mind that was built with confidence & youth, no longer willing to risk to create the veteran boxer attempts to reason 'which' is the better punch to throw with little to risk." I may have added a few words, but his statement made in a 1970s Ring magazine is where I remember it from. Larry Holmes definitely began to 'reason' where he once proved he could be aggressive without being vulnerable.
Gerry was great at hid best, he was right there with Holmes, right there. Shame he hadn't had some tough fights leading up to that fight. Many say he only had a left hook. Bull! Beautiful hard and fast jab, uppercuts that were great, and did have a very nice right hand. Able to maneuver his opponent around to get his punches off very well and a great killer instinct. Only really lacked a good defence. And he didn't have a glass jaw either. I would have loved to see him in with his contemporaries, who really knows why that didn't happen. We all just guessing. Turns out he's a great guy1 Here nothing bad about him, helps down and out fighters. I also wish he didn't take so much time off.
That's not really accurate. Pinklon Thomas had three amateur fights. Tim Witherspoon had five amateur fights. Gerry Cooney was 55-3 as an amateur. Cooney made it to the finals of the New York Golden Gloves in 1973, 1975 and 1976. He won the middleweight NY Golden Gloves title in 1973. He lost in the 1975 Golden Gloves light heavyweight finals to Johnny Davis, who would challenge Michael Spinks for the light heavyweight title in 1982. And he won the 1976 NY Golden Gloves heavyweight title in 1976. Also, in a dual USA-USSR meet in NY in November 1975, Cooney stopped Soviet heavyweight Nikolay Aksyonov in the first round. As for Dokes, Page and Witherspoon, they weren't "calling him out" and Cooney didn't exactly duck them. This wasn't a case of they were all fighting each other on the way up and Cooney was fighting old guys. Page and Spoon didn't face each other until Holmes vacated the WBC title in 1984.By then, Cooney had already fought Holmes for the title and was inactive for almost two years. And Dokes never fought Page, Spoon or Cooney. In fact, when Cooney was knocking out Young, Lyle and Norton, Dokes was fighting to a draw with Ossie Ocasio and Page was barely edging George Chaplin. Dokes' best win before he fought for the title against Weaver may have been a majority decision over Tex Cobb, who was coming off a loss to Norton. The same Norton who Cooney would destroy in about 55 seconds. And Page lost to Berbick on the Holmes-Cooney undercard. Spoon didn't even sign with King until Cooney was the #1 contender and in talks with Holmes. None of these guys were fighting each other in non-title fights on the way up while Gerry Cooney was "ducking" them. They all fought Jimmy Young. Cooney just destroyed Young, while and Dokes and Page didn't. Page struggled with Chaplin twice. Cooney destroyed Chaplin. Dokes struggled with Cobb (who'd lost to Norton). Cooney destroyed Norton. Cooney deserved his ranking. In fact, you could make the argument Dokes was given the softer touches up to 1982. Not Cooney. Cooney fought Jimmy Young, Ron Lyle, Hall of Famer Ken Norton and Hall of Famer Larry Holmes at his very best in successive fights. Dokes, in comparison, fought Ocasio, "Roughhouse" Fischer, Tex Cobb, John L. Gardner, Harry Terrell, George Chaplin, Lynn Ball and Franco Thomas in successive outings. Can you imagine if Cooney, instead of facing Holmes in 1982, had followed up his first round wins against Lyle and Norton with a first-round win over Mike Weaver, and Joey Curtis stopped it in one like he did for Dokes that year? People would've been calling it a fix to this day.
