Earnie Shavers v Gerry Cooney

Aw, ****.... I much as I like Ol' Ernesto Shavers, in truth, he was ordinary in skills and height and, reach... I can see even a green Cooney boy at 6' 6" tall and 225 pounds keeping Shavers at bay with his pawing but effective jab, while also hooking to Shavers' ribs and head... Shavers would jab with Cooney, but not be too effective there... Shavers would also loop / telegraph his right cross that would prolly fall just short of the homerun mark against the much taller Cooney boy, so therefore, I see Cooney boy getting to Shavers for the 6th round KO... COONEY!

MR.BILL:hat

Note: This is the pre-1982 Cooney.....

 

I'm not so sure. Earnie was the rare breed of puncher that dipped to throw. Most rise up.

Against a guy like Cooney, dipping to launch puts him right in line for a left uppercut and it was a great Cooney punch. It really boils down to Earnie dipping and catching Cooney standing there or if Gerry did his homework and fired off that uppercut the second Earnie dipped.

I wish I had enough confidence in Cooney to say he catches Earnie making that mistake and capitalizing. Cooney didn't exactly turn out to be an opportunist of the highest order once he stepped up in class and Shavers is a live body and Cooney never did fight too many of those.

There's no way the fight goes 6. Either guys defense is good enough to stand up to the offense the other guy has. Maybe 3 or 4 rounds and Shavers may have a chance at recouperating but I see Gerry with zero. Great gunslinger heavyweight bout though & what's wrong with that?