Master Class performances by underdogs?

Mosley - Margarito

 

Cooney--Spinks

 

I didn't know Cooney was a favourite I looked at the odds and apparently he was a 8-5 favourite which surprises me. I know Cooney looked decent in his comeback fights but he wasn't very active so I'm surprised people had so much faith him. I'm guessing it was the size difference that made people assume Cooney was the favourite ?

 

Winky Wright had 2 master class performances as the underdog against Shane Mosley (1) and Felix Trinidad.

 

There’s a ton of revisionism with Cooney. He was regarded as Holmes’ best opponent by a landslide and there wasn’t really much reason to think he’d fallen off. And I don’t really think he had fallen off. It’s more that Spinks exploited holes in his defense.

 

Walcott vs Louis I
Spinks vs Holmes I
Buster vs Tyson
Holyfield vs Tyson I
Lennox vs Holyfield I
Sanders vs Wlad
Fury vs Wlad
Usyk vs AJ I
Dubois vs AJ

 

Spinks was also an underrated puncher at Heavyweight I seem to recall Tex Cobb saying when he sparred Spinks he was one of the hardest punchers.

 

Michael Spinks vs Larry Holmes 1 is the first to come to mind.

 

He was inactive as hell and had fought about 7 rounds in five years. There was certainly reason to think he had declined, few fighters on that sort of schedule wouldn't, but maybe not enough to think he would have issues with the smaller Spinks.

Cooney was a dangerous puncher with lots of size for the era, but a good amount of his hype was also because there's a lot of good ol' boys in the states that love to jump the gun as soon as a decent white american heavyweight shows any promise.

 

I understand the point you’re trying to make, but there wasn’t another known am who blitzed through the competition like that again until Tyson, who was popular despite being black. And Cooney managed to get the big names on his record coming up that Tyson didn’t. Foreman preceded Cooney and Tyson succeeded him, so it’s hard to just call him a great white hype.

 

Azumah Nelson-Jeff Fenech 2
Manny Pacquiao-Marco Antonio Barrera 1

2001 was the year of the upset. Both Hopkins and Barrera were both around 3 to 1 underdogs and won soundly.

I wouldn’t call the other unification bout a “masterclass”, but Tszyu was also a 3 to 1 underdog when he beat Judah. And none of those fights were as big of an upset as Rahman-Lewis 1.

 

Oh, he was a legit contender, no doubt. Just got overhyped quickly.

 

He was a white hype.

He had big names but they were faded big names. Lyle was stopped by Lynn Ball in two before facing Cooney. Norton looked lucky to get a draw against Scott LeDoux. Jimmy Young who was also on the skids was stopped on a cut.

Admittadly the Norton blitz looked impressive but Ken was on the way out and had a history of problems with big punchers i.e. Foreman and Shavers.

Cooney's management was top notch in terms of getting the most $$ for least risk.

Unlike black prospects like Page, Snipes, Tubbs, Witherspoon and Thomas, Cooney built up a white blue collar following that allowed him to go straight to a fight with Holmes without having to fight other young, good fighters.

After the Norton win Sports Ilustrated put him on the cover with the headline "Gerry Cooney. Lethal. Awesome. Ready

I believed the hype. I was also 12 years old and watched as a casual fan.

History shows Tyson was the real deal while Cooney was not.

 

Dwight Braxton over Matthew Saad Muhammad to win the WBC LHW title.

It was a masterclass performance.

 

This might be what you’ve been told to believe, but the last American heavyweight to be a known am who just mowed everyone down leading into a title shot before Cooney was Foreman and the next one after Cooney was Tyson, and they also had hype.