Look at the times he was stopped. Against Holmes, he was pretty much out on his feet, and his trainer stopped the fight. He was still taking hard punishment from Holmes and still got back up from the first knockdown. In the spinks fight, again he took a lot of hard punishment, and tried to hang on. He got knocked down and continued to fight. In the George Foreman fight, he actually wasn't doing bad in the first round, but he got rocked again and couldn't recover. The difference, again, is he got up from the first knockdown, and continued to fight after...Even though he was mostly finished. The ref stopped the fight. I think he had potential to be a champion, if he had proper training... In the Young fight, I really liked his body work. He even showed his right lead to the body in that fight. So, thoughts?
cooney had alot of things going for him and one of those things that was a love/hate issue was management yeah they got him 20 million for holmes but damn it also broke him mentally
He had a very good trainer. He just didn't go to the gym enough. His management did okay for him. The loss to Holmes needn't have ruined him. It was just his own personal issues and personal lack of desire that held him back. And, yes, he showed heart in his fights. Shame he didn't show enough interest in having more fights.
He had heart, and some skills and definite power in his left, but I would be scared to match him against certain fighters i.e Witherspoon, Page, and Dokes.
Cooney showed he was a tough competitor in the Holmes fight. If you watch closely, everytime Holmes gets in a good shot, Cooney will always throw 3 or 4 hard shots in return.
Cooney was okay he just had head problems for awhile....but apparently is okay now and a succesfull businessman. He could teach Tyson and Holyfield a few things.
I know Gerry Cooney very well. I was even over his house a couple of times, and we were on a TV talk show together several years ago. He came to about 5 boxing events that I ran just this year and I had the pleasure of introducing him just about every time. In fact he wants me too, even if I'm not Ring Announcing. He had a Great left hook, and could have been much better if he didn't take off over 2 years after the Holmes bout. In that bout, he was only behind by 2 points and he lost 3 points for low blows.
Cooney might have won the Holmes fight if it had been 12 rounds.....plus, he needed that one good competitive tune-up fight before he went after Holmes.....maybe a Weaver fight or someone like that.
Gerry Cooney did for sure have heart. I could never figure out if he was poorly managed or smartly protected. It seemed like he rarely fought. It was as if he was very, very carefully brought along to get the big money title shot, but not really prepared and seasoned as a fighter along the way. Was a less than stout chin being protected? Not sure. But I always thought he should have fought more to truly prepare to be heavyweight champ.
Yup. And his trainers/management did not want him to go after Holmes early, which he wanted to do. As much as I admire and highly as I rank Holmes, the outcome could have been very different had he followed this plan. It could also have been an absolute disaster. Gerry had unmistakeable talents, a great puncher and a superb finisher with, yes, heart. He also had issues which manifested themselves in substance abuse. He was pretty much done after Holmes, which was far too early.
