I’m not talking about body shots. I’m saying anyone who Cooney would stop in a fight, body shots or otherwise, would also get stopped by Wlad. Consider that Cooney only made it 12 rounds once in his career, only to be stopped in the 13th. And Holmes’ MO was not about taking boxers out early. Peter did 12 several times in his prime and gave Wlad hell. Peter generally would go after the kill.
Cooney never beat anybody ranked int eh top ten by Ring Magazine, on the day that he beat them. Peter beat Toney twice while he was ranked, and also Maskaev. For all his flaws.that puts Peter well in the lead!
I don't understand how this is even a debate. Peter was champ in a decent era, dropping an ATG 3 times; Cooney was a manufactured contender who never beat an opponent who had a chance of winning. Cooney was iced by Larry Holmes and Michael Spinks, whilst both are levels better than Peter, neither hit in the same stratosphere as him. Cooney gets hit, and Cooney goes sleep. All of the talk of Peter's flaws is ridiculous, he has exactly what he needs to beat Cooney. All it takes is a punch, a chin, and a means to land. Peter has these.
I think Gerry could beat the past prime Maskaev who couldn't beat Peters or Naggy Aguileria. And if you ask me past prime Ron Lyle and Jimmy Young are better wins than past prime Oleg and Toney who wasn't even a HW.
Damn shame he could never prove it against a fighter with similar credentials in the real world! There I have to disagree. The former were irrelevances when Cooney beat them, while the latter were king makers when Peter beat them!
Toney was only a factor because of the terrible state the division was in at the time. Cooney would have done harm in an era of non-althetic plodders
I don't like an argument that involves an assumption! You are assuming a big gulf between the talent level in Cooney's era, and the talent level in Peter's era. How could you ever prove that? Even if we assume it to be true, Peter got a lot further than Cooney in his era, so he has a bit of a cushion to absorb the difference. How would you prove that the difference between the eras, was sufficient to nullify Peter's cushion?
OK. Well, as far as I can tell then, Cooney does have something to show Peter that Wlad didn't (or couldn't). I don't think Cooney needs 12 rounds to beat Peter. Moreover, you make it look as though it was easy to get to the end of a full 12 rounds against a prime Holmes. It's not like there are more than a handful of opponents, who either did or went past that number of rounds with Holmes, at his peak. Cooney did so, in temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. I am not sure this is really setting Peter apart, to the extent that he's the obvious pick against Cooney - (Unless you're trying to now compare Peter to Holmes, which would be absurd).
We saw what McCline was able to do with Peter while he had gas in the tank. Unlucky for him he was not condidtioned having took the fight on short notice. We also saw what Peter was albe to do to a gassed out McCline ..Not a whole lot!
So, the "highest level" boils down to Toney and Maskaev. I thought it might amount to those two names. Let's just forget the fact that, other than an ancient fat middleweight and a guy, who was KO'd in every fight he lost (6 times, other than by Peter) in Maskaev, Peter lost to every other ranked contender or Champion that he faced. So be it. All this means to me is that Cooney is the value-for-money bet here.
The washed up versions of the fighters I mentioned were better than anyone Peter ever beat. He did pretty good against Holmes, too.
It wasn't 100. Go to Vegas at night. The only guys who didn't see a 12th round after Holmes fought Cooney were the tandem of tanks, Scott Frank and Marvis Frazier, and a tko late against Bey.