Could Henry Cooper have beaten any linear heavyweight champion in history ?

No, but he might knock them down. Has some great wins over upper tier contenders too like Foley.

edit-For some reason took this as all time greats; misread. Yeah, he has a shot against some of the lesser lineal Champs like Rahman, Briggs, Leon..etc.

 

Leon Spinks.

A close & brutal fight, but i think Henry Cooper is the better fighter.

 

Shannon Briggs and Hasim Rahman on a very, very good day, maybe.

 

Bob Fitzsimmons, Tommy Burns, Marvin Hart, Leon Spinks, Shannon Briggs, James J Braddock all very big possiblities.

 

Henry was what he was, a good world contender in a strong era. Henry was a great character. a real pro with heart and discipline who was a genuine 15 round fighter always giving 100%.

cooper deserves as much of a chance against ATG’s as just about any other solid contender who never got to be linear champion. He was a box fighter with a good skill set and a KO punch at the top level. Yes he could be cut but without hindsight you couldn’t entirely write him off. He brought a lot to the table.

Cooper was on par with any abc champion. He totally would have been a belt holder had his era been one of split titles. Since all strong contenders pick up "world"belts of some description when there is no undisputed champion I doubt anyone could disagree with that.

Aside from zora folley here is a list of ring magazine top ten rated contenders cooper beat.

dick richardson (euro champ, beat ezzard charles and bob baker)
joe bygraves (comonwealth champ)
brian london (beat pastrano, radmacher, roger rischer and zora foley)
joe erskine (beat chuvalo & pastrano)
alex miteff (beat nino valdes)
roy harris (world title chalenger)
wayne bethea (beat ezzard charles & ernie terrel)
karl mildenburger (world title chalenger & euro champ)
hubert hilton (rated in top ten 1966)
jose urtain (beat 4 euro champions, ring magazine fighter of the month)

*heinz neuhaus (draw in germany)

heinz was a euro champ who beat rex layne and dan bucceroni

 

Leon Spinks

 

perhaps micheal moorer

 

Bob Fitzsimmons would gangrape enry.

Maybe a really ADHD Jack Sharkey.

 

:nono No i dont think so.. Moorer has become underrated.. Moorer would stop him early or mid rounds at the latest.... Im sure Cooper could beat some of the Hw from waaaay back but i dont see him beating any of the recent titlist. He got cut to easy, and was also kod quite a few times, if that was his achiles then than it would be more so today...

From the footage ive seen,, Cooper was a good offensive fighter, he was a hard puncher and had good hand speed. He looked strong too, im sure he would have been one of the better Cruiser titlist. He has some good wins under his belt,as well as losses..

I think him and the Spinks that fought Ali would be very entertainng and maybe evenly matched..But could easily see Cooper winning he had much more experience and Spinks didnt have the greatest chin.. But Spinks for a short period of time had alot natural talent,and was pretty quick, and could bust up Cooper before he got going.. Reminded me of 200lb poor mans Aaron Pryor.

RIp Henry.. I heard today would have also been his birthday.

 

http://youtu.be/_RNuLL5ia_0

 

Nice interview, thanks for posting. :good

Our 'Enry.

 

As people have said, he might on the day but he typicaly wouldn't.

To be fair, he would have a verry good chance against Leon Spinks.

 

and Tommy Burns :good