Is Gerry Cooneys power underrated or overrated ?

Cooneys power was no joke he could crack

 

My exact thought

 

I hate this generation. Every single thing has to be categorized as "Overrated," or "Underrated."

Cooney could crack. That's all you need to know.

 

Unfortunately for Cooney he was a hardcore fighter who was in mostly racially political fights. Had he won he would have been placed as a great and a movie would have been made about him. Same crap takes place in combat sports today with the classic white vs black narrative. It's historically very American.

 

P4P one of the heaviest punchers. I always remember what he said to an interviewer after the Holmes fight:

"You know what? My father told me 3 things: you ain't ****, you'll never amount to anything and you'll always be a failure. After the Holmes fight, I felt all 3 things at once."

 

Brutal hook. Almost killed Ken Norton. But not a two-fisted fighter.

It is very possible that Cooney never had the same power after the Holmes fight, because he got so deep into coke and booze. He was noticeably physically frail later in his career.

 

Preach. It's like a fighters jaw is "glass" or "granite", almost like there's little in between SMH

In Cooney's era he was a big HW and he was a big puncher. Stamina, punch resistance were his problems.

 

Yes. In my post above I almost added - a bit mentally fragile, confidence easily shattered.

 

Oh, hell yea Cooney could punch!

 

This is exactly right.

Watch him against Foreman. Look at their arms & physiques, Though a bit fat, George had so much more muscle.
Still Foreman said only Lyle & Williams had comparable power.
yet I think he may have forgotten Liston.

 

To be fair George always looked more huskier than basically everyone he fought.
But Gerry’s left hook was dynamite and even the diminished Cooney rattled big George in the first round and comeback Foreman’s chin was top shelf. Cooney had legitimate huge one shot power despite lacking in a few other areas.

 

Agreed. he had power, only against the elderly fighters like Ken Norton and Jimmy Young but did not show it against an elderly George Foreman in 1990.

 

Well said friend.... The sad thing about it was Cooney didn't want anything to do with
that nonsense. That was forced on him by society and Don King who made millions off that
particular disease.