Did gerry Cooney's management make a mistake?

Cooney made no mistake. He had a superfight and made serious dollars, so he (IMO) made the right decision.

What he should of done (without hindsight) is fight more often post Holmes, that is where the demons set in in mine, and many others opinion.

 

Cooney made 10 million against Holmes, 5 against Spinks and 1 when he fought Foreman...

Thats 16 million, and mind you the dollar were worth more those years, so You cant really say anyone made mistakes here...
At least seen from a money perspective.

 

Under the right circumstances, Snipes may have beaten Cooney.

 

I agree with Sal here. You don't just abandone $10,000,000 ( the equivalent of about 25,000,000 today ) to polish up your fundamentals with the hope that the same offer will be there in a year. Cooney probably should have fought a tuneup or two before facing Larry, but pass up on the opportunity? Hell no..

 

Cooney's delimna was being the great white hope of the early 80's. From a boxing standpoint it was a mistake and he should have been more active and have worked his way up throught the ranks more to gain experience. However, his market value was inflated to the point of where if he did not take the Holmes fight, it would have been a very bad business decision. Overinflated white hope money won out in this one and Cooney capitalized on it. Would be interesting to see how his career would have gone if there were more good white heavies back then. I imagine if Cooney were coming up now, he'd be a promising fighter and he would work his way through the ranks, become better than he was in his real career, and win a belt or two

 

I personally spoke with Victor Valle in 1993, and he told me that he could not get Cooney to train properly anymore after the Norton fight. He said that Cooney started believing all of the media's hype about his power and lost his focus.

After speaking with Valle, I'm sure the timing was right for the Holmes fight. Weaver would have been too big a risk. If Cooney had stayed focused on his boxing career, he could have challenged for another title after Holmes. He would have probably made as much money for any non-Holmes fight, post or pre-Holmes. For all of these reasons, I must say Cooney's management made the correct decision in facing Holmes when they did.

 

I would like to add to my previous reply. After reading up on the subject I learned that Cooney was in fact supposed to fight Mike Weaver first, but the WBA told Weaver he had to fight James 'Quick' Tillis or he would be stripped of the title. It was then that the Holmes fight came through for Cooney. But just the same Cooney should have had a tuneup bout against a non threatening opponent who was a boxer to bridge the gap between May 1981( his last bout before facing Holmes,which was a 54 second blowout of Ken Norton) and June 1982, when he did fight Holmes.

 

Shavers fought Cobb on August 2, 1980. The reason I remember that is because it was my 8th birthday and Tommy Hearns also became champion that day. The Holmes fight would take place almost 2 years later in June 1982. The time period Cooney needed to stay active was from May 1981 to June 1982, and it would have been best to take on someone who was more of a boxer and couldn't hurt Cooney and not a dangerous puncher like Shavers who although was over the hill then still had the power to screw up a 10 milllion dollar payday.

 

I also remember Cooney was also supposed to fight Greg Page I believe before Holmes and he suffered a cut in sparring and was out for a year. Cooney had a lot of injury problems like his shoulder and cuts etc. in training. Cooney just had bad luck. Either way his management (Rappaport & Jones) were idiots not getting him ready for Holmes and fighting only 3 rounds in 3 years up to the Holmes fight. Cooney was just not ready for the fight and it showed.

 

Agreed,

I have always contemplated why Cooney was not active for much of that two year period from 1980-1982, with the exception of boxing 55 seconds with Ken Norton in the spring of 1981. Another poster named Duodenum, once mentioned that apparently Cooney had spent some months in drug rehab sometime within that duration, prior to the Holmes fight ( source needed. ) Additionally, his team was campaigning hard to get Gerry a title shot, and was going back and forth with both the Holmes' and Weaver camps. Therefore, these things may explain why he wasn't fighting as much as he needed to be, nor against the calibur of opponents that could have polished his skills. The fight that he had with Jimmy Young sometime in 1980, was exactly the sort of match that he needed more of. Young was past his prime, but still active and capable of giving Cooney some hard fought rounds of boxing, yet didn't have the capability to ruin his confidence. If only his team had gotten Gerry a few more fights like that ( along with keeping him off of drugs ), his career may have gone a bit further...

 

Interesting I knew Cooney had drug problems but thought that was after the Holmes fight. Cooney had potential but I read an interview with Gil Clancy where he said his management did not have faith in him and were worried he would lose before they could cash him in with a Holmes fight.

 

Yeah, the other poster that I mentioned said something about him having substance and alcohol abuse problems throughout his whole career, but again a source needs to be found, and not just something off of wikapedia.

As for Cooney's management keeping him covered until he could fight Holmes, I have heard the same thing on multiple occasions, and frankly I believe it. I think his handlers knew he had some weaknesses and were leary about putting him in the ring with the likes of guys like Cobb, Shavers, Berbick, etc. Needless to say they were protecting a huge investment. At one point, they were looking at going after Mike Weaver's WBA title, but held off when they smelled a much bigger fish frying in Larry Holmes.

 

Intersting story, I never heard that before. Well if Cooney had taken a shot at Weaver & was beaten. A rededicated Cooney may have given Holmes a much better match in a second title opportunity. But it still wouldn't have made the money of the actual fight though. Because Cooney was undefeated in thier actual fight & had a sort of mystique, after the way he destroyed Norton in 54 seconds.

 

Is right, apart from being white, it was the mystique of those crushing wins over Norton and Lyle. One bum fight could of cost them that 10 million purse. Cooney would never have been ready to beat Holmes, so it was a good business decision.
I do take my hat off to Cooney though for the bottle he showed in the fight.

 

My thoughts exactly.

Hindsight is 20/20.