If Gerry Cooney didn't fight Larry Holmes in 1982 and picked on older and unranked

Both men were guided by very nervous managers in Terry Lawless and Dennis Rappaport.

 

I understand, but what do, they prefer money or proving greatness? They sound very self centered.

 

I don't know much about Rappaport other than his management of Cooney but Terry Lawless's reluctance to let Bruno fight anything remotely resembling a live contender was legendary here in the UK.
With his drawing power, it would not have been difficult to bring the likes of Tubbs, Page or David Bey to London. If you read Mickey Duff's book he details how difficult it was to get Lawless to agree to any opponent.
Lawless saw Bruno as his lifetime chance to have a Heavyweight Champion and was never going to risk that.

 

That's bad management really and doesn't give the boxer a learning curve before they're in too deep.

 

As has been said dozens of times over the years the WBC and even more so WBA ratings were woeful overall. Anyone that lived the era deeply would know this. Norton's previous three fights included being obliterated by Shavers in under 2 minutes, drawing Scott LeDoux 25-7-3 and eeking past the durable but limited Tex Cobb. He'd actually retired after the LeDoux fight and hadn't fought for 15 months. Remember, you are the one always harping on about opponents not being busy and fighting contenders leading into fights. Norton was Ring rated #10 and is the only Ring rated guy Cooney ever beat.

Young was not Ring rated but is in reality Cooney's best win. Young gave him problems before the terrible cut caused a stoppage but by the same token Cooney's fists caused it.

Young was seen as a viable opponent for Holmes in 78/79 but couldn't beat Ossie Ocasio of all people. Ocasio was 11 fights deep with no notable wins.

Young's 5 fight streak after Cooney was against nobodies and then Page beat him. He lost 5 on the trot and was seen as an older name for up and comers to gain experience and pad their record with.

And there's the perfect example of how disgraceful the ratings could get.

 

These Cooney threads hurt my head.

 

Yes the problem with Bruno was he had far too much exposure far too soon. I think he was the first fighter where every one of his fights were televised. Which back when there were just three TV channels was a very big deal.

Had Lawless been able to send Frank to live in the States and have his first 10 bouts over there away from the microscope he would have had the confidence to match him with anyone after that.

instead, because he got that exposure too early on, the best domestic fighters wanted a piece of the action with Frank before he was ready, so they had to import professional losers from America to bypass the British title route. It didn’t really prepare him for much.

It was okay for Duff to complain about Terry rejecting better fighters but Lawless had a kid on his hands who had only fought men who were half beat before he fought them. A lot of the best rivals were in his own stable. But The imports were too easily intimidated by the atmosphere of a Bruno fight.

There were a lot of fights that fell through like Evangelista, John Tate, Page, Larry Alexander and much later on Ray Mercer.

but there were opponents who should have been able to test Frank a lot more early on that just offered nothing or just got blown away like Billy Sharkey, Ken Lucuster and Lucian Rodriguez who usually handled themselves against top fighters.

Scott Ledoux was quite an ambitious matchup at the time but Bruno dealt with him easily. They even went to America for one fight to meet Mike Jameson, a durable guy who had been the distance with Mike Dokes and Frank just iced him earlier than Tyson was able to years later.

I think Frank got all the way to the Bonecrusher fight..and the only two fighters that had gave him any kind of resistance by then were Stuart Lithgo (a brave domestic fighter from northern England) and Jumbo Cummings.

Gerrie Coetzee should have been a much better test than he was. As it turned out that blowout was no more use to Frank going into the Witherspoon fight than Norton was going into the Holmes fight for Cooney.

sometimes a fighter can be a victim of his own early wins.

 

yes but look at the order of that. Norton gets knocked out by Shavers, draws with Ledoux then retires. Ken then makes a comeback and beats the guy who just stopped Shavers!

all this needs to be taken into context. Who was the best guy Micheal Dokes beat to earn a title shot? Was it Tex Cobb? Wasn’t this after Cobb lost to Norton?

like a lot of people say, Cooney needed more than a one round blow out behind him to tackle Larry. Just one round in 13 months. But take a look at the challengers for titles in those days. How many rated guys did they all beat? Even the good ones like Carl Williams, Pinklon Thomas, Tony Tubbs, Tim Witherspoon. Tony Tucker. Did they have better wins on their records before challenging for titles? I don’t think so.

 

You mention context in your post yet it usually seems to elude you.

Let me make this whole post simple.

After Shavers stopped Norton he never had another good win again. Between ko'ing Norton and Tex Cobb he lost to Holmes, was stopped by Bernardo Mercado and then after a meaningless win along came Cobb. Shavers was old and was declining rapidly. Regardless the good old A and B and C theory seldom works.

Yes context.

Am i saying Cooney shouldn't have got a title shot? I'm not remotely arguing anything about title shots. What i am pointing out, again, is that Cooney fought nothing between the very best and a couple of fringe contenders. I don't care where the palooka's at the WBC and WBA rated them i am talking real world. The Ring Ratings were smicko at the time and other respected publications were close to mirroring them.

We actually agree on something - absolutely. His preparation was terrible and he certainly needed a lot more than that before facing the world champ. In a sane world he needed, as has been stated on this thread, more experience and a gradual building up to better opponents. As others have already pointed out they took the easiest route possible in positioning Cooney for a lucrative shot at the title. Once they had the hype train running they were never going to risk Cooney going bust against a solid top 10 contender. There is a reasonable chance a solid top 10 contender may have beaten him and they'd be back to square one. There is also the chance Cooney may have won. This would have been great for him. We will never know because they simply were not willing to risk it. It was a quick money grab vs developing their fighter but with the risk things could go south. Maybe they knew things about Cooney behind the scenes that we don't to.

Again i am not saying Cooney wasn't a worthwhile challenger. Hell even in bashing the likes of old Norton, Lyle and Young he did more than many of Holmes other challengers ever did. Frank, Rodriguez, Zanon etc etc etc. With all the hype it was logical Cooney would get a shot, almost mandatory.

I'm just saying, correctly, that Cooney didn't do much of anything against guys between the level of Holmes and a fringe contender or two. You said he only got beat by the best but the man didn't fight the very good at all. Post Holmes he fought a couple of non "very best" in Spinks (we KNOW Tyson was better at this stage) and Foreman and got whupped and yes you can argue what state he was in comparative to the Holmes fight. Truth be told i am far from convinced he would have beat Spinks or Foreman at any stage of his career. He certainly never proved he could beat guys of that caliber. Foreman i believe was not rated before nor after beating Gerry.

 

Like you say there isn’t the proof to support this, but it might be a little unfair on Larry Holmes to think so. He beat a huge threat to his title when he beat Cooney. He needed to have everything going for him.

same as everyone else.

yes the managers were short sighted. Cooneys career was a disastrous flop on its way to financial success. The political landscape though was almost impossible. Ultimately his sparring partners got to be belt holders but he didn’t. But for the money, There’s almost something wrong about that.

maybe. Maybe not.

 

Ali gave up his title in early 1979 and retired. John Tate won it.

Cooney wasn't even in the WBA tournament.

So he would not have fought Ali for a world title.

He could have fought Tate or Weaver.

I would favor Tate over him.

He could have possibly caught Weaver cold and taken him out early. Weaver was a slow starter.

Cooney's management wouldn't risk fights with Tate or Weaver. They wanted the huge payday he could only get by facing the perceived real champ, Larry Holmes.
If he had fought and beaten Weaver, he would have gone on to lose to Holmes in a unification match, if the sanctioning bodies would agree to it.

If he was locked out of a unification, and defended the WBA title, he would have fought the likes of Page, Dokes or Witherspoon. All high risk and relatively low reward. I don't think he would hold the title too long as he could be outboxed. I see him as probably being remembered as just another short reigning WBA champ while Holmes is remembered as the real champ.

 

Tate could have beat him, but it would have to be his best boxing exhibition, ever. Weaver...I don't know, Weaver had Tyson-level power...when he was there. Too often it looked to me like Weaver wasn't all the way there in fights. He'd look distracted, disinterested...a frustrating fighter to cheer for.

 

Bruno's inability to demonstrate any real improvement when he did step up is proof of this.

 

Excellent post Choko. In retrospect Bruno's wins against Lucien Rodriguez and Mike Jameson are worth more credit than they got at the time. Lithgo called for a re-match for 18 months after he was stopped on cuts in their fight.
LeDoux and Coetzee were retired when they were brought over. LeDoux got £25,000 and was put up at the Savoy for a week with his wife. Coetzee, who had bought a farm in South Africa, got £250,000, which he simply couldn't turn down.
Witherspoon didn't push himself in training for Bruno. He was based out in Windsor and there were barbecues and girls. Despite this Frank had no idea how to handle a guy who could actually fight.

 

Nice post but just one thing.

Given your knowledge of the 80's i reckon you already knew this but it's slipped your mind. Cooney and Weaver were signed to fight but Bob Arum, James Tillis and the WBA threw a spanner in the works and said Weaver must fight Tillis. It was after this that Holmes was targeted. King had already offered Cooney about half of what he eventually did to fight Holmes but Cooney targeted Weaver which made sense on many levels.