A great what if. What if Don King was Gerry Cooney's manager?

The thread title is what if Don King was Cooney's manager. Not his promoter. And when King became the promoter, he basically was the manager.

The moment King got Page, Page started fighting guys like Evangelista, Young, Tillis and Berbick. The moment King got Witherspoon, Tim fought Snipes then got a title shot with Holmes. BOOM. BOOM. No screwing around. The moment he got Leon, Leon was fighting Mercado and Holmes. Same with Mercado. Got him, matched him with Shavers and Spinks.

King just threw you in. That's what he did. He didn't "groom" guys. The closest he came to "grooming" guys were Michael Dokes and David Bey, who he got right out of the gate. And Bey's first pro fight came against Freaking undefeated BUSTER DOUGLAS. He signed Dokes early in his career and he was immediately in there with Jimmy Young and Lucien Rodriques and Ossie Ocasio. He signed Ossie Ocasio when he matched him with Young and that was followed by another fight with Young and title fight with Holmes and back to back fights with Dokes.

Ocasio had 13 fights. And King matched him with Young, Young, Holmes, Dokes, Dokes. (Back to back). When he signed Snipes, he put Renaldo in with Coetzee, Holmes, Frank, Berbick, Witherspoon, Berbick and Page .... one after the other.

Anyone who thinks King was going to go slow with Cooney didn't follow the sport closely back then.

All King did was complain about how Cooney wasn't fighting anyone. King would've matched Cooney with a top 10 guy and then right to a title shot. That was basically what he did.

If Cooney lost, it would've been throw him in with a couple more top 10 contenders and then match him with another champ. Cooney would've been fighting everyone.

 

And he does whatever he wants whenever he wants in the early to mid 80's. Are you of the opinion that things go worse for Cooney if he signs with DKP?

 

Initially, from a financial perspective, yes. It would've been worse.

Even though they said the fight was 50-50 purse split before the bout, Cooney got $10 million for the Holmes fight. Holmes got around his normal $3 million. Cooney is still financially sound today. Cooney wasn't getting $10 million if he was just another of King's fighters. Cooney's managers got that guarantee. Holmes' manager was basically King. So he didn't get any guarantees.

As far as boxing goes, Cooney would've faced better competition if King ran his career and who knows how things would've played out if he was busier and proved himself. Maybe if he'd fought the top guys routinely and won a title, maybe in the long run he'd be more successful overall and maybe he'd have earned Tyson numbers before Tyson set the standard.

Once King got Tyson, Tyson was busy and fought all the time and made a lot of money. Cooney may have done that in the early 80s.

Since we never saw Cooney in with guys like Thomas or Weaver or Page or Witherspoon, it's hard to tell how well he may have done.

If Cooney was dominant, I'm sure he'd be better off today. If Cooney was one of those guys who won and lost and won and lost the title - like everyone except Holmes did - Cooney would probably be worse off today.

 

I disagree with your conclusions. Not the points you make, the conclusions drawn.

DKP would not rip off his moneymaker. He'd rip off the challengers though.

And I think he faces lesser competition under the King banner. Zero mobile fighters like a Holmes. Zero counterpunchers. Face first & catchers & guys right in front of him. No hitters either. Pretty close to what he faced anyway, it'd just be bigger names.

Like paying Saad Muhammad to move up to heavy > those losses of his. Opponents like that or what Holmes was doing--Bey. There's a nice match for Gerry. Scott Frank. Another nice opponent. Leon Spinks. Pay Knoetze to come out of retirement. It wuld have been horrible for us boxing fans & the same as what the wilder camp is doing now. He would not be put in the shark infested waters.

 

Gerry may have earned more but he definitely would have been paid less.

 

I think regardless of who trained him I believe Jerry couldn't cope with defeat very well. No boxer wants to lose but he never really recovered from his first loss. It wasn't physical as Larry didn't punish him that much. It was more mental and emotional. Some have speculated that Cooney`s managers coddled him too much but hard to say. You cant give a guy mental toughness.

 

Mike Weaver was no pushover. The morally corrupt WBA sent MW to fight
Gerrie Coetzee and Davey Moore to fight Charlie Weir in South Africa
(apartheid at the time ) and both Coetzee and Weir were ko.
MW had a dangerous punch and even when past his prime he was a
gatekeeper for the HW division.

 

Holmes give him a fair old beating if I remember rightly! But I agree he diddnt cope with defeat well at all. I remember in a interview years later he said before the Holmes fight he thought he was superman then after the loss his whole world came crashing down.
For me two things went wrong with the talented Cooney. Firstly the Holmes fight came to early.
Secondly the money he got from fighting Larry gave him less incentive to get the top again.

 

I agree on both counts.

 

Don King, the very first Troll, hence the hair!

 

the thing that makes the weaver fight so bad to deal with for weaver is he was sooo hittable .. he was there to get smacked .. I wonder if he can hold up to the pounding ..or if he'd catch cooney with the same shot he caught tate with

 

I agree. Although I also think Cooney gets destroyed whenever he fights anyone decent, which always happened in his career.

 

I don't think King would throw Cooney to the wolves. Cooney had the "proper pigmentation" and it would be dumb to throw Cooney in with tough guys before a big $$ fight could be arranged. And, Don King, for all his faults (mostly ethical) was not dumb.

I hate to say it, but none of King's various black contenders brought the $$ Cooney brought. So, he could match them tough against each other.

He would have gotten Cooney a big $$ title shot after carefully matching him, similarly to what Cooney's actual managers did.

Then, upon winning or losing the title fight, King would match Cooney tough. But not until then.