Cooney takes on Shavers instead of Norton. Good or bad decision?

did Cooney ever beat a prime guy?

 

Gerry would stop Earnie no later than 3 rounds.

 

cooney kos shavers

 

Cooney is one of those fighters you just don't know how good he really was. He either won big or unraveled. Norton was one of his great wins. Reminded me of some of the Mercer knockouts later where he is landing damaging punches. I wish Cooney would have fought Weaver when they proposed it in about 1981. The Spinks loss to Cooney was devastating. Being knocked out in 5 by Spinks.

 

Shavers would lose to Cooney at any point in his career imo

 

In Shavers peak Quarry blasted him out in one round. Why can't Cooney?

Cooney was short on live victims but Shavers never really was anything more than dangerous risk for good fighters.

Shavers didn't exactly beat live contenders himself.

At the end of the day a guy as good as Holmes was the one to break Cooneys run. Shavers had his run broken by Ron Stander...

 

Exactly the type Cooney's manager's avoided

Sure, Holmes ended Cooney's run, but that doesn't mean somebody else couldn't have. Cooney's managers took extreme caution in getting him the Holmes fight without having to face any live, prime contenders.

 

Cooney by early ko.

 

Didn't Rappaport and Jones try to get him in with Mike Weaver for the WBA belt before Holmes? Quick Tillis was the WBA #1, and I heard that they tried to pay Tillis step aside money so Cooney could fight Weaver. Tillis I heard refused thinking he would beat Weaver easily, until he felt Weaver's power and ran all night.

 

There's a very good chance Cooney might belt him out in one round.

There's also a chance he falls short due to having not only a live contender in front of him, but one with immense power intent on knocking him out cold.

Shavers in his prime is something Cooney and co avoided like the plague. They wanted to fight lesser fighters and name fighters who were now shot or close.

You see Cooney never fought someone in between the top of the tree and fringe contender. How does he go against standard top 10 contenders? We don't fully know. He looked great at times feasting on washed up or ordinary fighters but that doesn't prove how he'd do against the likes of Shavers, Page, Witherspoon, dokes, Thomas etc etc.

When he semi stepped up later Foreman belted him tho i don't think George was top 10 at the time.

Shavers utterly obliterated a Norton who had given Holmes a life and death fight just 9 months earlier. He did it in under 2 minutes. This is better than anything Cooney ever did. Norton was rated the 3rd best heavyweight in the world! Tell me what top 5 fighters Cooney beat?

He massacred Jimmy Ellis who had only been beaten by Ali and Frazier in the previous 9 years! Elis was ranked the 4th best heavyweight in the world at the time. Huge win. Tell me again what wins Cooney has over top 5 fighters?

He also drew Jimmy Young right before Young beat Lyle.

He beat Roy Williams who you paraded in front of us recently as a telling point as to how Holmes would go against the likes of Lewis, Bowe and the Klits.

He beat Henry Clark twice who beat your beloved Roy Williams.

Which i just emphatically debunked. He not only beat but smashed the number 3 and 4 ranked heavyweights in the world. This powers over anything Cooney ever achieved.

At the end of the day Cooney fought no-one between reasonably weak and Holmes.

At least Shavers got out there and took on all comers, showing heart and ballz. You can get all biased and cherry pick all you like, Shavers wasn't afraid to step up to the plate and had 89 fights compared to Cooney's mere 31. Of course he is going to have some losses when he threw caution to the wind resume wise and put himself out there so often.

Stander was Shavers 14th fight. They were both in the learning stage. To compare Shavers at that stage to Cooney at the Holmes stage is just silly to be honest.