Frazier '71 vrs. Cooney '81

I'm starting to have a love/hate relationship with that saying.

 

frazier

 

Interesting matchup. I see Cooney landing some good shots early in the fight but Joe's stalking ability and his lunging hook catches Cooney in rd 6 or 7, down goes Cooney down goes cooney .

 

Frazier beats him up quite easily. Cooney would not last beyond the 6th round.

 

A very large, fast-starting power puncher versus an extraordinary, slow-starting grinder willing to take two to land one.

My worry?

The fast-starting giant may only need two to end it.

Anybody that dismisses Cooney in this scenario isn't thinking it out.

An upset is very possible.

 

I guess you just don't get it; Norton doesn't have a good chin. A much younger Norton was KO'd clean in sparring with Joe Frazier. Again, he may have power, but he could never KO a live opponent; A prime Frazier is a very dangerous opponent for any HW in history except Foreman and/or Tyson.

Like I said, where this fight will end up, size won't matter. Cooney won't be able to outbox Frazier with his reach; contrary to your logic. At some point Frazier will get inside Cooney and go to work.

It provides some, if any, advantage in a fight. At the end of the day, it comes down to who is the better fighter.

 

Manuel Ramos deployed that same punch against Joe with some success, but was giving ground in the process, much as Gerry would have. Bear in mind that Cooney did some retreating against Jimmy Young before gashing him open. He's not shoving Frazier backwards like Foreman did.

I've pointed out before that Joe wasn't as slow a starter as he's commonly stereotyped as being. This wasn't Duane Bobick (who openly did characterize himself as a very slow starter after being swamped by John Tate). He charged out of the gate in starching Zyglewicz, decked Daniels in round one, and threw 64 punches in the opening three minutes of the first Quarry fight (where Jerry pitched 93 of his own, hardly a sustainable pace for a 15 round heavyweight match). Near the end of the opening round, only the ropes saved Ramos from hitting the deck. I wish more fans studied the actual footage of some of these opening rounds before mindlessly categorizing him as a heavyweight Danny Lopez. (For Little Red, sustaining an opening round knockdown sometimes seemed almost scripted. Wait...wait...there it is!)

Gerry would almost certainly nail Frazier early, just as Ramos and Stander did. As in those other two instances, this might merely serve to wake Joe up. Part of his greatness lies in the fact that he didn't freak out and look for a soft place to lie down when he got tagged, but came on more savagely. Even when he was hopelessly shot and out of shape, Foreman couldn't punch him into submission to take his title, but had to appeal to Frazier's corner to stop it before Mercante waived it off. I don't see Cooney being able to sustain this kind of early beat down on a peak Smoke, and there goes his only chance of winning.

 

I only match up fighters prime for prime,but I have given Frazier some stick lately in matchups,so, if you will indulge me?
Frazier by ko, Cooney had serious power ,but didnt absorb shots too well and his chin was up like a lantern.Frazier can break him down with body shots and then go upstairs ,he may get tagged and go down but I think he could survive one bomb from Cooney, to come back and wear down the tall Irishman.

 

All provided that Cooney gave him the time and the target

 

I initially thought in my first prediction but watching Cooney the last few days made me think otherwise. Cooney just wasnt good enough to do what Foreman did, didnt have the range of punches or his own defense/skill to keep Frazier off him

 

Cooney isnt Willie Pepp, he's getting swarmed all over

 

I find it funny that people here are pointing to Frazier as a "slow starter" or claiming he is "unproven" against big punchers as arguments in favor of Cooney. Michael Spinks was a slower starter too (MUCH moreso than Frazier), and in his only other fight against a big HW puncher he was flattened in 90 seconds. Not only did Cooney never even get him in any kind of trouble, but as soon as he started hitting Cooney, Cooney basically crumbled. Spinks was not in Frazier's class as a HW and had nothing like his power, ferocity, or workrate.

 

Cooney was neither fast nor elusive.

 

Sometimes it happens that a big man beats a little man, but the opposite does also occur. It is a case-to-case scenario. I don't believe in these generalizations, especially concerning a sport as unpredictable as professional boxing, and at a world-class level no less. Size almost always counts for something, but this goes for diminutive boxers as well, provided they are educated in the finer points.

Cooney boxes on even terms with Frazier in the early rounds, in my opinion. I am hesitant to give him the clear advantage because of Joe's irresistible pressure fighting,a style Gerry has to adjust to. He could well hurt Joe with the left uppercut, as was stated before, and he might also find him with the occasional jab, but I would not depend on this to effectively tip the balance in favor of the taller Irishman. Towards the later rounds, I predict Joe to sloppily batter Cooney enough to convince the referee to stop the contest. The 13th would be my guess.

 

Frazier by mid-rounds TKO. I get what everyone on Cooney's side is saying, and believe that under the right circumstances a style clash can make a lesser fighter a favorite over an ATG. I don't think this one would play out as superficially as the lone parts would dictate -- Cooney, big and strong, a puncher, with a hefty uppercut, fast starter. I don't think he lands that jab nearly as often as you'd think, and won't react to being hurt as well as his opponent. Frazier is more accurate, actually evasive, and mentally much tougher, and that last component seals the deal for me.