Cooney VS Bob Foster

Foster was nothing at heavyweight. And he's facing a 6'6 powerpuncher. He gets destroyed. He was a great light heavyweight but Cooney is too big and too strong for him

 

Gerry Cooney kind of reminds me of fictional character Toro Moreno in 1956's The Harder They Fall, starring Humphrey Bogard and Rod Steiger. A tall gigantic heavyweight that is fed bums and has been's to get a shot at the heavyweight title held by Buddy Brannen (Max Baer Sr). Moreno kills a former champion that has been severely damaged by Brannen. Moreno's trainer played by Jersey Joe Walcott has been told by Bogard to actually tag Moreno on the chin ,he fall. Anyhow Brannen destroys poor Moreno, breaks his jaw, gives him a horrifying beating, knocks him out. Moreno's management collects a very hefty payday, Bogard seeing bloodthirsty management gives Moreno his purse. What ever happened to prestige? Is it all about money for a fighter? That is a crooked underworld way to finish a fighter. I do not care for that practice. Cooney never impressed me fighting Nursing Home refugees.

 

First of all, nothing of the sort you saw in the movie happened with Cooney. He acquitted himself well against a prime Holmes who was super prepared and fighting at his best that night.

Gerry did make a ton of money — his managers didn’t rob him. They also, in combination or separately, guided others like a pretty pedestrian Billy Costello to a world title, got Howard Davis Jr. a $100,000 a fight CBS contract out of the Olympics starting with his pro debut (look at Davis’ opposition), and had various degrees of success with Glenwood Brown, Alex Stewart, Tim Witherspoon, Tony Tucker and others. I don’t think a case can be made that they were not competent boxing managers or promoters (as in marketers) of their fighters. They darned sure weren’t mobbed up. They do not resemble your Hollywood movie.

Go look up how some of those guys who were put in against tough opposition by their managers have fared in life, how they live, and compare it to Cooney. How many broke former contenders who were also beaten senseless. Mike Jones managed Wilford Scypion for a time and when he started to slip, Jones urged him to retire — when he didn’t, Jones let him out of his contract and walked away. To act like they were counting $1,000 bills outside the ring while their guys were getting turned to hamburger and then giving him a $20 while laughing to the bank is not an accurate painting.

Prestige doesn’t pay bills. It doesn’t pay rent. Money does. It’s PROFESSIONAL boxing, which means it’s a profession. The idea is to get in, get paid, and get out. Gerry didn’t take a lot of beatings, and the two major ones he took on comebacks happened AFTER he left these managers (and he was still paid handsomely). I’ve met Gerry — he has his senses and his talks in complete sentences and is aware of his surroundings.

On the one hand you say ‘he should have been fighting guys who were better’ and on the other you’re saying ‘he was thrown to the wolves and getting his skull crushed.’ Well maybe those better fighters would have left him broke and broken. Maybe he’d be on the streets begging for pocket change.

His ascent saw him fight some decent guys to develop with: Eddie “The Animal” Lopez, Tom Prater, Dino Dennis and Young all had things to offer an up-and-comer. Ken Norton was still ranked in the top 10 and had beaten Tex Cobb before their fight — does anyone accuse Cobb of beating up a corpse (would be odd since Norton won)? Lyle was a heavy bag.

As noted, there were plans for other fights between Norton and Holmes — Shavers and Weaver for sure — but they didn’t come to fruition after they were signed for. And after two years of drinking and drugging when he came back, one of his fights was against George Chaplan, who arguably beat Greg Page twice … the exact kind of guy you would want a fighter to fight rather than a hopeless guy looking for a soft spot.

Was his career map perfect? No. But it wasn’t as bad as you want to make it.

 

Good stuff SP.
Some look at Cooney as a sort of ultimate failure who simply got a shot at a title with no talent because of his complexion.
But the Cooney I saw fight Holmes beat damn near all heavyweights available at that time.
He had the tools.
He was lacking the will to get back on the horse after the lost. (But how many could when the weight of most of the entire country is on your shoulders, and even the president of the USA has a phone line directly to your locker room, expecting your victory, how much pressure was he under? How did it effect him after the loss? )
Cooney was a better fighter, and was in a much better situation than most would give him credit for.

 

Like I posted, can't prestige go hand in hand with making money? In my opinion, I believe that Gerry Cooney was afraid that if he had met peak quality contenders like Tim Witherspoon, Pinklon Thomas or even Michael Dokes he would lose thus ruining his chance at Larry Holmes. I am not impressed at him fighting ancient ranked relics like Ron Lyle, Ken Norton and Jimmy Young to get to the title. Sorry if I have offended the Cooney fanboys.

 

C’mon Richard, you’re better than that. The last line in your post is beneath you. We can discuss topics on their merits without that kind of condescending, passive-aggressive nonsense. Don’t dismiss cogent arguments with ‘fanboys.’

I can give you a list of some fighters who fought really tough opposition who were no better prepared when they fought a great champion than Cooney was — in fact many fared far worse … and many more than that didn’t even get title shots because they were thrown to the wolves.

Leon Spinks fought a pretty good level of opposition in his first 14 fights but was no better prepared to fight Holmes. BIg John Tate took on some tough hombres and his career was basically over before it got really rolling.

You mention Witherspoon, Thomas and Dokes — they fought a lot of tough fights, they ‘made money’ and they ended up making Don King rich while they were scraping by at best for most of their careers and post-fighting days. Where did their prestige get them? Mike Weaver was still fighting long past his sell-by date because he had to … guess that prestige didn’t buy groceries.

Cooney’s management maximized his earnings and got him a title shot. There’s a difference between ‘making money’ and maximizing earnings. All of the above would have been thankful to have management that took care of them the way Cooney’s took care of him.

 

We can agree to disagree, I respect your opinion but I respectfully do not agree with it.

 

There's an interview with Cooney and Holmes in this week's Boxing News. Gerry admits that he should have had more experience before they fought, but there were ten million reasons why it went ahead when it did.

 

You keep blaming Cooney. If you know what was going on at the time you would know that Gerry had no control over his career. Rappaport and Jones had all the control. They were control freaks and via this mechanism they hindered Gerry’s potential and growth. Cooney is only to blame for his various injuries (which he had several) one which was the shoulder because Valle had him punching a bag attached to a wall in training every day that had no ‘give’ in it. Only after the shoulder injury did they at the advice of the doctor rig the bag to a trampoline type backing setup where there was give and Gerry wasn’t essentially jamming his shoulder into a cinder block wall with no give. This also likely caused his many knuckle chips and issues he had to have surgery on. It was stupid stuff like this that was avoidable. You also had King who had all the other top heavyweights at the time and he had no interest in letting Gerry cut his chops and hone his craft and gain much needed experience against his own fighters only to use that experience later to wrestle the title away from King.
Rappaport wanted to fight Weaver for the WBA in October of ‘81 as Gerry was ranked #1 contender and was the mandatory. Somehow Bob Arum jumped in and got Tillis who was the #3 contender the title shot instead by back room politics. That wasn’t Cooney’s fault. Jones wanted to fight Holmes a fight that Cooney clearly wasn’t ready for. Weaver was the much more winnable fight and would have provided more experience. People always point to Gerry being given everything because he was ‘white’ but it sure as heck didn’t help him get a shot at Weaver. Tills was offered $300k step aside money and guaranteed a shot at Gerry if he beat Weaver by Rappaport but Tillis got bad advice and refused. Again, not Gerry’s fault. So what did the genius Wacko Twins end up doing? They put Gerry on the shelf for 13 months and agreed to a fight outside in the Vegas heat with Holmes who is likely a top 5 Heavyweight of all time with an inexperienced fighter who had several injuries and had been inactive for 13 months. Just stupid. Even then Cooney was able to go 13 rounds with Holmes. Now, everything after the Holmes fight is Gerry’s fault for the most part he admits it. The Wacko Twins had a fight agreed to for December of ‘82 vs John Tate who had been stopped twice by then and was a spent fighter and a very winnable fight for Cooney to get back in the groove. Cooney declined and continued to drink and drug at his bar and in the disco’s in New York. He wouldn’t fight.
People **** on Gerry but the guy had potential as a lot of those early to mid 80’s Heavyweights did but few of them were able to take advantage of it due to drugs or alcohol or both. Gerry was always going to self implode but his career would have likely been different has he been managed and trained by a different team. His original choice was Cus D’Amato to be his trainer but Gerry didn’t want to be sequestered up in the Catskills and the Wacko Twins sabotaged it because Cus also said he had to be the manager as well which would have cut them out totally so of course they didn’t want that. Cus is who recommended Valle who was primarily a trainer for much smaller fighters and wasn’t really cut out to train Heavyweights. He never taught Gerry how to properly clinch or hold for example. We could go on for days about this but much of this was out of the control of Cooney himself. Other than the drinking and drugs which came after the Norton fight Gerry had little control of his own career and he certainly wasn’t the only Heavyweight at the time or the last fighter to be used as a puppet by overzealous management who mismanaged a fighters career.

 

Holmes himself admits that if Gerry had gotten more fights and experience and waited until 1983 or 1984 the fight could have gone the other way. Holmes told Cooney after their fight that in order for him to progress and become a champion he would have to rid himself of Rappaport and Jones. Gerry didn’t listen. Holmes was absolutely right.

 

I’ll bet you aren’t a big Tyson Fury fan either?