Do you think Cooney was ever the no. 2 guy in the heavyweight division?

Yeah probably I can’t see Weaver beating him and he’s considered about the 2nd best of the “Holmes era” right?

 

Yes. When he was focused.

 

Yes he was.
And if he had Hagler's or Holyfield's willpower , he'd be a much richer man , and the majority of American citizens would be calling him the greatest heavyweight to ever live!!!!

 

I think he is right behind Holmes for the era. Had his mind been in the game he would have had a great trilogy with Holmes for the ages.

 

Nope.

His opponent list never supports the claim. He never fought his contemporaries & there were a ton of them from that timeframe.

 

Christ no lol. He beat what, one top 10 contender and he was only just in the ten. If he fought the likes of Page, Weaver, Dokes and co it's extremely likely he'd have picked up an L or worse. Was he top 5 H2H at the time? There's a good chance of that. Being #2 is extremely unlikely. Weaver gave Holmes a tougher battle, a great fight. Witherspoon too. Snipes and Shavers barely won 2 minutes of their challenges but had Holmes in enormous trouble for that brief time.

What i will say is that he fought very well against an extremely careful Holmes. He had potential, quite a bit of it, but unfortunately it wasn't realised. It's a shame, he was extremely likeable and had great power.

 

Yes. If for no other reason then the early 80s being a dead zone for HW. He might be the worst 2nd best HW of a 3-4 year stretch in the divisions history but thats a different issue.

 

Witherspoon should beat Cooney. Dokes and Snipes would be a problem. Should beat everyone else comfortably

 

Page on his good nights would be a nightmare. He was big, tall, long, fast and aggressive with a great jab and ripping right hand. I'd take the Page that beat Coetzee in South Africa for sure. He took a few enormous right hands off Coetzee and then pounded him with his own.

 

Page wasn't really that big and I think Cooney was a better boxer than given credit, but he was a solid contender and Cooney would have his work cut out for him, too bad Cooney didn't fight his contemporaries

 

When he was focused he was a mean sob.

 

Page is down as 6'2 but I've seen him labelled 6'3 plenty of times. He had an 81" reach like Cooney and tho a bit flabby, had some good performances around mid 230's. Even boiled down he was bigger than Holmes. The only guys over 225 Cooney fought was Foreman and a guy with 4 wins. Cooney had big trouble avoiding right hands and Page threw a lot of them.

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No. At any time Cooney was contender (beginning when?) up to June 1982, there was Weaver, Berbick, Dokes. Maybe Page. And even Coetzee, Leon Spinks, possibly John Tate still.

Cooney knocked out Norton who was still good enough to beat Tex Cobb. So we can say he was better than Tex Cobb.

 

I seem to recall that, on the strength of his performance against Holmes, there were a number of scribes believing Cooney to be the second best heavyweight in the world at that point.

Despite what came next for Gentleman Gerry, I'm not sure I'd have disagreed with these perspectives at the time.