Classic Forum Chat: Size isn't the only factor.

Maybe you were overrating Joshua then. It’s not like Usyk did it to Fury.

 

Cooney was more popular than Spinks, which could help explain why a drunken burnout with less than 7 completed rounds of competitive boxing, in 5 years, was also the betting favorite.

Why not? I am not suggesting it absolutely was a "cherry pick", but anyone could be forgiven for thinking so.

No one was really taking the fight seriously, at the time, as far as I can recall.

 

Pretty similar to Fury heading into the Wilder fight, but Cooney looked better in his tune ups.

 

My remark was in response to an earlier one.Usyk had faced 3 that come to mind.

Cobb had not been ranked for 3 years

 

Show me the rest.
ps You do know I've been suscribing to the Ring for 30 odd years?

 

You need to tell me whom "everyone." consisted of. You saying it does not make it so.
Tucker was ranked no8 in 1986.Show me where Gregg was ranked? NB Gregg had 2 fights in1986 he took a decision off unranked Walter Santemore 20-18-0 in Jan and lost by tko to Cooney in May,Cooney had not fought fora year and a half and was also unranked,he would have a further 2 fights and lose them both,by stoppage . Would that explain why Gregg was not ranked do you think?

 

All except:

Fury was not coming back from a devastating loss and, irrespective of his hiatus, was still considered the Lineal Heavyweight Champion. Cooney was never the same again, after losing to Holmes, and never held a version of the World Heavyweight Championship.

Fury had fought twice over 13+ rounds, inside of 6 months of his bout with Wilder, whereas Cooney's comeback consisted of having fought less than half-a-round, followed by gap of over a year before meeting Spinks.

Fury was not the betting favorite going in against Wilder.

Despite his dimensions, Fury neither had a comparable size advantage (over Wilder) nor the Big-Punch reputation that Cooney had (over Spinks).

Fury had completely cleaned up is act, whereas Cooney admits he was partying while the Spinks fight was being made-unmade-made etc.

 

Holmes was irrelevant.

Counting rounds isn’t how this works. Fury was a morbidly obese alcoholic shortly before the Wilder fight.

Cooney looked like Cooney until Spinks caught him and subsequently beat the absolute **** out of him. The odds reflected that he wasn’t washed up. Losers have excuses.

 

Bowe has Holyfield not only once, but two or some say even three times. So that's two or three wins over a prime ATG. Douglas beats Tyson then gets blown pout by Holyfield who Bowe beat not all that long after.

Let me know when you find a respectable list that has Bowe and Douglas really close. McGrain has about 35 men between them.

 

In the context of differences between Fury's comeback and Cooney's comeback, Holmes was most certainly relevant.

Isn't how what works? I don't think you have even understood the point that was being made.

What do you mean by "shortly before"? Fury didn't come into the ring morbidly obese, did he?

I'm sure this^ has no relevance to the contrasts between Fury and Cooney that I spelt out. But, either way, Cooney weighed in a career heaviest for Spinks and it is widely accepted that Cooney was never the same after Holmes.

Fury, on the other hand, took a straight and focused path towards a title shot against Wilder. He weighed in a little over his career average and arguably put on, at that point, his career-best performance.

The betting odds indicate nothing, other than where the money is going. If you really think you can reliably surmise what you just have, from the betting, then it explains a lot...

...as does the above. When you rely too heavily on plagiarizing fortune cookies, in a pitiful attempt to appear sagely, it might be time for you to go and actually learn something.

 

Fury did not get the opportunity to fight a prime Holmes.

One becomes ready fight in a gym. Cooney’s MO was early knockouts.

I am unaware of fighters who were prime after being morbidly obese alcoholics a year or two before.

We could also wheel out an old ass Vitali coming off a serious injury as someone who had a tougher road than Cooney, but went straight to the top.

 

Although much was rightly made of this kind of inactivity, beating Eddie Greg had put Cooney into the ratings again. Cooney had the “size advantage”, and was always talked of as a challenge to the title anyway. Nobody was talking about him being a drunken burnout until after losing to Spinks. Larry was piping up about wanting to fight Cooney a second time just Prior to meeting Spinks. When champions are calling out retired contenders it kind of says something about the stature of that challenge. Ring magazine did a big piece on a Tyson versus Cooney match during this period. Cooney was always hot property because he was seen as having a punchers chance with anyone.

There was a serious amount of money involved. I guess serious money comes from serious talk.

I can imagine the alphabet boys were still rating Cobb and Dokes around the time of their set for 12 round rematch for that WBC bauble.

And yet we see zero evidence of you having any monthly issues. Not a single one. Just quotes for annual ratings.

Easy to say in hindsight. Losing to Holmes most felt he could “come again” against any other champion. It’s not like any of them could hang onto a belt very long outside of Larry who was getting older and older.

well he was knocking out guys in one or two rounds whenever he graced the ring in the years after meeting Larry, so it was hard to see if that was effecting him until he fought a good fighter. Spinks, world champion or not, was not a popular HW champion or even seen as a good HW. He still isn’t.

Don’t forget, Tyson, as an unbeaten prospect, was a bigger draw than champion Spinks was. They had to add Tyson to a Spinks undercard to sell his world title defence. That was not the case when spinks fought Cooney.

I can’t see Bowe rated any higher than 12. 15 to 18 is about right. . But I can see why Douglas is rated behind Bowe on most lists taking into account his loss to Holyfield and patchy record. On his night he’s pretty equal to Bowe. He really is.