How bad was Gerry Cooneys chin ?

Cooney’s chin wasn’t that bad. Cooney’s problem was he left a lot of openings and took shots flush while often standing square, which is the worst way to take a punch even if you have an excellent chin.

 

Cooney was like a lot of guys.
When you are hungry and have aspirations, you are ready and willing to endure whatever it takes.
When your heart is no longer in it, the punches are harder and hurt more.

 

His chin was pretty good. The fighters who decked him knocked out a lot of fighters.

nothing wrong with the punches that sent him down.

The difference between a good and great fighter is one inch of timing. If your chin is one inch in the wrong position you can get found out.

 

Hard to say how good his chin was, he was such a massive puncher most of his fights ended early. Going into the Holmes fight he was 25-0. Holmes hurt him twice - in the second round and in the 6th a round Gerry was winning until Holmes rocked him badly. Holmes was a good puncher but not a great puncher.
After that Gerry’s heart wasn’t in it anymore. He had couple of more quick ko’s of decent fighters before the Spinks bout. He couldn’t deal with Spinks angles, accuracy and work rate. But was stopped on his feet. 3 years later Foreman stopped him in two rounds.
Cooney’s biggest issue- was he didn’t know how to survive at all when hurt. It’s very evident in all 3 losses, he didn’t know how clinch, cover up. He had no feel or instincts to survive when hurt.
Still he only lost to 3 hall of fame fighters. Plenty of guys were stopped by lesser fighters than that.

 

I think it was below average and would have been shown up if he fought some top tenners.

 

Similar to Marvis Frazier's.

 

Not great obviously but not horrendous. Knocked out by three great fighters. Two of which were the last fights of his career. Most fighters get a pass then. Had he had a nobody or two on there I’d be more skeptical.

 

Same kind of thing with Marvis. The guys who kayoed him stopped a lot of good men. Unlike Frank, marvis did get past bonecrusher.

 

He did not have a glass chin

He took a lot from Holmes before accumulation of punches and exhaustion

Spinks pounded on him for five rounds and he wasn't hurt till the last round

Sure old George one shoted him but that was a decrepit Cooney who had one fight in four years.

 

His chin was better than Marvis

 

So true - and an aspect, which can be difficult to factor into a performance, without knowing what was going on behind the scenes or inside the boxer's head at the time - even more tricky when a bout has drawn a lot of attention and hype.

 

Lol, if you get Tko'd by Michael Spinks, you should quit boxing for real

 

It was oddly a lot like Norton's chin.

 

I think his early round losses to spinks and Foreman created the illusion that his chin was weak. But in fact those easy defeats were probably attributed more to his inactivity, lack of interest in the game and poor lifestyle habits in the interim. Judging by the beating Gerry took over thirteen rounds against Holmes while also dishing some of it back, I seriously doubt Spinks and old George would have enjoyed that little walk in the park against THAT rendition of Cooney