Gerry Cooney - the hardest puncher ever?

A hard puncher all right but not the hardest..do you mean p4p?

 

Lynn "The Bullet" Ball had gotten to Lyle before Cooney did. "The Bullet" wasn't a good fighter at all, in fact he was rather terrible. Lyle had just declined a lot by then, most forget that he was pushing 40 years of age.

 

Foreman said Lyle. Young said Shavers. Lyle said Shavers. Norton said Shavers. (Holmes admitted after their match that Cooney was never able to connect solidly enough for him to make an honest assessment of Gerry's true power.)

Gerry landed some solid hooks to Young's body, and Jimmy responded by coming forward. Young was decked by the hook of Shavers, and it was a hook Foreman used to seriously stun Jimmy. (His hook also rang Chuvalo's bell. Like Shavers, Foreman was a huge puncher with both hands.) At no time did Cooney's power hurt him like this.

I think a case could be made that Cooney was a harder hooker than Morrison. Gerry clearly affected Foreman more with a single short inside hook than Tommy was able to do with 12 rounds of bombs. Yes, he was a great puncher, but there's nothing to suggest he was the hardest of them all.

 

I recall reading that Norton said Foreman. Maybe it depends on who he is thinking about. Yes, Lyle was finished by the time Cooney fought him.
Cooney hit hard, but not the hardest.

 

Lyle has named Shavers on camera, and when pressed and forced to chose among the heavy hitters he's faced, Foreman seems to settle on Lyle.

The fact is that Ron was indeed the only opponent to drop George with his power alone. It's also a fact that Young was not floored by Gerry as he was by Shavers, nor was Jimmy staggered by Cooney as he was by Foreman. These are not subjective opinions. Young did not appear to be in any way troubled by Gerry's power.

Gerry does not enjoy the overwhelming opponent consensus on the supremacy of his power that Shavers carries. I do think the evidence Gerry's hook was harder than Morrison's is concrete, based on Foreman's reactions to getting hit by both.

Denis was officially floored for the first time by Cooney, but he dropped immediately after a round ending bell in a delayed reaction from the effects of Foreman's power. As has been noted, Lynn Ball got to Lyle first, diluting Gerry's achievement in starching Ron.

 

I heard George say that also. I asked Larry Holmes about it and he said (as mentioned above) he didn't tag me flush but he did get Larry with a particular body shot near the end of one round and Holmes said he used the ropes to help him back to the corner. Said Gerry's jab was underestimated too.

I used to watch Cooney train in Palm Springs when I was a kid. He was a super nice guy. I remember Victor Valle shouting "take it easy Gerry, take it easy on these guys". Several of his sparring partners had to leave the ring after getting tagged. He looked like (had he been able to weather the mental storm of losing to Holmes) he could have at some point won a title.

 

no, not the hardest but a very hard puncher. Lyle was shot by the time cooney got to him.

 

Very Hard Puncher with that left hook. Such a shame he never took on Thomas, Spoon, page, coetzee, tate, weaver, dokes, tubbs...would have given us a much better impression just how good he was.

 

yeah, that holmes fight took a lot out of him, he needed to fight a lesser fighter then holmes and get some more exp, it didn't look like he was very schooled.
I think cooney had potential but he threw it away whn he fought holmes.

 

Cooney should have rematched big Sam McGill and Eddie Lopez in ten rounders as soon as possible after they extended Gerry the eight round distance. They met the criteria for being safe, as Cooney had already defeated them, and the experience of winning over the ten round distance would have given him badly needed confidence that he could go longer with Holmes. He also should have gone after Leroy Jones and his never defended NABF Title in 1979. Jones wasn't likely to hurt him, and may have extended him the 12 round limit, which could have been huge when dealing with Larry.

 

Top notch power

 

:good True i heard Foreman say the same thing. Another one who was amazed at Cooneys power was Quarry. An old friend of mine who was also a gym owner and friend of Quarrys said that when JQ was contemplating a comeback in the early 80s he sparred with Cooney and said he had never been hit like that before said Cooneys hit incredibly hard.

 

two things I noticed:

Cooney nailed Lyle with a flush left hook before the barrage of punches and the stoppage and Lyle took it fine.

Cooney had no right hand. None. Always trying to hook with the left. It is a shame he was not developed better by a proper trainer. He had potential but it was never realized.