Cooney's career with a better manager and trainer?

Cooney had a very fragile psyche. He was also very, very injury prone -- he had more down time and fights cancelled due to injury than people here seem to remember.

Hard to manage a guy who can't stay in the gym due to injury. Hard to train a guy who is always starting over because of his injury-induced layoffs.

Valle did pretty well in training Esteban DeJesus, Alfredo Escalero and Billy Costello, a guy he made into a world champion who didn't have exceptional skills.

 

Cooney put up a good fight with Holmes. with the right mgmt, he wouldve picked up the WBA belt without much problem, then knocked off stiffs like Coetzee (too slow too stiff, cant get out of the way), maybe a match with John Tate, & easy paychecks before falling prey to some up N comer. I give him a year and a half to two years before going south

 

Yeah, true.

 

I once read where Gil Clancy, a fellow Long Island irishman was cringing at the memory of young Gerry getting his earliest boxing lessons at the Huntington Y.M.C.A.
Could of Gil brought out a better fighter?
Definitely!

 

I think that Cooney had the talent to be much more than he was, and think that he was mismanages, but I also think that his own conduct outside the ring was the main contributing factor in his fall.

 

Agree. Being hungover for Spinks is pathetic.

 

That was his undeserved second shot at the lineal title.

Didn't it mean anything to him?

 

I'm sure it does now. Looking back, I'm sure Cooney is aware he should have ko'd Spinks. Drinking and doing cocaine before a fight isn't a good idea.

 

I didn't know he fought Spinks in that condition, what a dummy, looking back now I doubt it mattered, Michael still would have won, he was clearly the superior fighter:deal

 

A focused, not hungover Cooney would have ko'd Spinks. I bring focused in because Cooney obviously had other problems outside the ring.

 

Yep, throw in all the stuff going on at that time period. The media/public was thirsting for a big white heavyweight champion, partly due to Holmes lack of personality, and lack of a quality American white heavyweight since Jerry Quarry. Being in the 80's, the decade of excess. The Miami Vice generation, cocaine, partying, more cocaine ("a hell of a drug"). America had regained its swagger it had lost in the late 70's and was letting loose. Cooney's management seemed to fit right in with 80's life style.

Throw Cooney and his fragile psyche into this equation and it kinda makes since things didn't work out as well as they could have.

 

when I originally watched the fight, I couldve sworn the fight was fixed. I wondered why Gerry didnt unload on the twerp

thankfully, someone else did

 

I remember that. Cooney was on the cover of every family magazine-US, People, etc and was touted by the Rappaports as the first bilion dollar athlete

 

What I am saying and i thought clearly is that the build up that this fight would of been given had both been champions and especially if you replace spinks with cooney considering the approaching Marciano milestone would of been so big so racially provocative that Holmes would of come in fit focused and as mean as hell and yes that sort of Holmes could of pulled out one last great performance