Do you think Cooney was ever the no. 2 guy in the heavyweight division?

My time line is solid. Let's forget anything from November 1980 onwards then. Much of what I highlighted still fits. It also cuts out what was probably Cooney's best win (Norton).
In the 18 months leading up to November 1980, the other have better results than Cooney has. Cooney's ranking is not merit-based.
The ones with losses are fighting at a higher level.
Beating Jimmy Young at that point should not position Cooney above: Weaver, Coetzee, Berbick, or even Tate. Or Dokes.

You say "Dokes drew with Ocasio". He also knocked him out in 1 round shortly after. And Ocasio is rightly above Young in 1978-80 ! ... and Young (barely hanging in the top 10, probably outside it) is Cooney's best win, his only notable win, at that point.

You hit the nail on the head when you alluded to Cooney knocking out household names in 1980, who TV viewers had seen fight Ali and Foreman years earlier.

Yes, has-beens. Set up to pad Cooney's record, coordinated with the hype campaign.
Ron Lyle was long past being a legitimate contender.

No one should be considered an elite world ranked fighter for mopping up Lynn Ball's leftovers in 1980.

But clearly I'm only talking about merit-based rankings. That's all. If you prefer hype-based or popularity rankings, that's a different story.

 

Cooney is a classic "what if" story. He had great talent but lacked the drive and focus to go along with it. As a result I can't ever see him holding a legit #2 ranking at any time during his fighting career.

 

People seem to not be able to understand just how inconsistent all those early 1980's Heavyweights were other than Holmes. Page had skills but had dedication problems and lost to Berbick on the Holmes - Cooney under card in a boring uneventful performance. Cooney was #1 in the WBA and WBC. He was mandatory challenger for Weaver and the fight was supposed to be in October of 1981 at Caesar's Palace as a 'test' run for a potential Holmes fight in 1982 to see what kind of crowd Cooney could draw to Vegas. Cooney was to be paid 5 million and Weaver 2.5 million. Somehow, Bob Arum was able to intervene and get Tillis who I think was the #3 WBA contender the fight over Cooney. Rappaport and Jones offered Tillis $300k to step aside (which he agreed to) but the WBA then said if Weaver fought Cooney instead of Tillis they wouldn't sanction the fight so no title on the line which would have hurt the gate and attendance etc. Rappaport wanted to wait and fight Weaver/Tillis winner Mike Jones and Victor Valle wanted to go ahead with the Holmes fight. So, Cooney was inactive for 13 months and fought Holmes outside in 100 degree heat. Dumb. Cooney's career after the Norton fight was a head scratcher. He brutally KO's Norton in under a minute then sits out for 13 months? Makes no sense especially considering Cooney needed 2 or 3 more fight before someone like Holmes. Put me down as someone who thinks Cooney needed a different trainer than Valle its not that Valle was incompetent its just that he was used to working with much smaller defensive minded fighters. Cooney's original choice was Cus D'Amato who would have likely developed Cooney's potential much better and had him more active getting more experience. Supposedly Cooney and D'Amato met and Cooney was late to the meeting and it rubbed D'Amato the wrong way and they didn't get along during the meeting which isn't surprising because lets be real D'Amato was a strange weird guy who just happened to be a boxing savant. Cooney had huge potential it was just never realized partly because of his team around him and partly because of his own personal demons that got in the way.

 

Dude, don't insult me. I don't prefer "hype-based" anything.

I'm just telling you what happened.

Gerry Cooney was 24-0 after the Ron Lyle fight. He broke three of Lyle's ribs. It was impressive. So was his bloody stoppage of Jimmy Young.

No other rising contender had as many fights or wins. Most struggled mightily. Others lost or drew, as I've pointed out.

Weaver was one of two champions at the time, so he was listed as champ in ratings, but he'd lost one out of every two or three fights he'd had in his career to that point.

Fans didn't have a problem with Cooney being the #1 contender after the Lyle fight. On the contrary, people were excited.

Holmes wasn't considered anything special at that time. In fact, many thought he'd lost "his legs" after the Norton fight. And many resented him. It took a long time for people to begin recognizing him. And Mike Weaver had nine losses to go with his 22 wins. The 70s heavyweight division carried the sport. By 1979/1980, the party looked to be over.

When Cooney started demolishing those names from years earlier, like Young, Lyle and then Norton, everyone took notice.

That's just how it was. He didn't turn out to be the next "great" heavyweight, but then none of the others coming up with him did, either.

But the original poster asked if he was ever considered the second best heavyweight, and there was a period from the Lyle fight to his fight with Holmes where Cooney and Holmes were certainly considered the two best ... regardless of Weaver having a belt.

It's easy to disagree 45 years later, when you know how the story ends.

 

I lived through the era and disagreed at the time. A merit based ranking doesn't require hindsight. You rate them as you go along.
The question is "do you think Cooney was ever the #2 in the division?".
No he wasn't ever. And even at the time his inflated ranking usually fell below Weaver, even those who reckoned he would beat Weaver acknowledged Weaver's higher ranking.

 

Not true. The question isn't simply was he ever ranked higher than Weaver?

The question is was Cooney ever "considered" the second-best heavyweight?

Considered is "opinion." And the answer is yes. Even the oddsmakers had Cooney the favorite when his fight with Weaver was in the works in 1981.

Weaver was rarely the favorite in fights back then, because the oddsmakers on the West Coast had seen him lose so many times.

 

I do take your point about the official ratings, but surely the thread's question is soliciting an opinion of the individual observer, not merely asking for a confirmation of the historical record?

 

Weaver was a slow starter. Cooney was a fast starter and had been knocking guys out in one or two rounds or giving them a savage beating (Young, Denis) and the fight stopped. Holmes was mostly taking his opponent’s the distance or close to it in what were considered boring fights. Fans want knockouts. It’s always been that way. The hype and excitement Cooney was generating regardless of his opposition was no different than what Tyson did in his first 20 or so fights. At both times the division was basically stagnant. I think Cooney likely would have stopped Weaver in the first 4 rounds. Again, people like to **** on Gerry but he could fight and he had heart he just never reached his potential due to management and his own self sabotaging behavior. Page and Tate didn’t reach their potential either along with several of those early 80’s Heavyweights. The purse money was starting to explode and it made these guys lazy and fight less frequently. Rappaport and Jones had a contract to fight Tate in late 1982 as Cooney’s comeback fight after Holmes. Tate had been KOed twice by then and it was an easily winnable fight for Cooney but he wouldn’t sign and continued to sit on a barstool and drink his sorrows away over Holmes fight. Holmes was basically the only guy in that 1980 to 1985ish era to fight consistently and stay clean which should be an absolute credit to his legacy just about all the other contenders were lazy, alcoholics, drug addicts, or all of the above.

 

No I don't personally think that he ever was.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing of course.