Cooney's name seemed popular for it's mention in the first thread so lets jump the queue and pop im right up. We are talking around late 83. Angelo Dundee Another guy who'd have a big advantage in height and reach, Cooney also would have had problems keeping Marciano at punching distance, But, Cooney is one of the best bangers since Marciano and he would have punched with him.....for a while at least. "With neither Holmes nor Cooney would the weight disadvantage have hurt Marciano too much. Marciano was awfully strong for his weight. He bored in on you, he didn't let you lay on him. And he had the punch to neutralize the weight different. He hit like a big man, harder than almost any big man. He cut'em down to his size. The thing with Cooney is he's not there yet. And he's got a long way to go. And i don't know if he's going to get there. I don't know if he works hard enough. I know he doesn't fight often enough. But he could be a great heavyweight if he went at it with a great trainer the way Marciano did with Goldman. Cooney wouldn't have been as difficult for Marciano as Holmes because Gerry isn't as fast and sound as Larry, but he might have made a great fight, too, because he hits so hard. Rocky would have gotten real low and come up punching. Rocky would have hit him downstairs and gone upstairs with big blows. He'd have Cooney going backwards and out of balance. But, Cooney can bang inside too and he and Rocky might have been a helluva battle as long as it lasted.
Cooney's uppercut would do some serious damage to Marciano especially with his crouching aggressive style. As I keep saying Marciano was tough but that was against Light Heavyweights/Cruiserweights not big Heavyweights with serious 1 punch KO power. Marciano is obviously greater than Cooney but still it's a 5'10 185 pound Cruiserweight vs a 6'6 220+ pound Heavyweight with one of the hardest left hands in Heavyweight history. Marciano has never fought a young notable prime hard hitting Heavyweight over 200 pounds.
Marciano wasn’t susceptible to uppercuts. You’ll have a hard time finding footage of him getting hit with them because his head was always dug into his opponents chest or was off center line in his crouch. He wasn’t a head first fighter like Patterson or Frazier, he took shots from Louis, Walcott, Moore, Charles, and Layne. All have notable KO’s on their record all punched real well. Only Louis was old but even then he had 3KOs the year he fought Marciano.
Cooney could punch short to devastating effect, particularly, of course, with the left hook. Even if one favours Marciano overall, I thinks it’s reasonable to acknowledge the perils for Rocky in this match up.
