Gerry Cooney- a little bit underrated

How about Spinks was a lot more talented??

In boxing talent goes a lot further than size...

 

Most OVER rated HW on here.
Wins over Norton and Young were blast outs of old shot fighters.Beat nobody who was 'on the up'.
Good effort v Holmes no doubt.
But zero after.
'White hope' marketability got him exposure beyond his ability.

 

Yes.

 

Yes, Cooney's fault. Shouldn't have been in the ring under those conditions.

 

****ey was a good fighter for a short period of time, but riddle me this: How come he didn't fight Greg Page and Michael Dokes? Scared perhaps?

 

I don't think you can accuse the fighter of being scared ****ey was a managed fighter also let's no forget he did get in the ring with holmes the toughest fight for any heavyweight of that time

 

****ey was his own worst enemy. He has no one to blame but himself. But I do wish he had been managed by a real pro like Dundee or Cus DAmato. Perhaps they could have motivated him better, had him fighting more often, given him less time inbetween fights to party and wreck himself. By the time Gil Clancy got him for his last fight, he had nothing left, was a burned out shell. Perhaps had Clancy gotten him when he was very young.

 

Agree, but I think there was a little more. He had an incredible left hook, the power was undeniable. Compare his power to say, Bobick.

 

Gerry showed the direction he needed to go in for Dino Dennis. Keep that jab pumping, optimize his height and reach against a cutie who had previously stood face to face with Foreman (making John look like a midget by comparison to GC), then unloading a single hook off that jab to close the show between these hated rivals.

Victor Valle had him work assiduously on his atrophied right with his innovative Valle bag. (Was Gerry born with Erb's Palsey?) Although Gerry was always digging his right well to the body on the inside, he and Valle developed his cross to the point it became a serviceable weapon to the head. It was a right that initially stunned Norton, ripped open Jimmy Young's face in mid ring from long range (a shocking connection considering Young's legendary defensive skills) and dropped Phillipp Brown during Gerry's post Holmes comeback bid.

What happened against Holmes? Gerry forgot he had a jab, forgot he'd developed the right hand needed against a Holmes, and banked everything on a left hook to the body which was never a useful weapon against Larry.

There were limits to how far Gerry could go. Gil Clancy had him attempt movement to confuse old Foreman, and he looked awkward doing so. Stylistically, Arguello might have been a better template to model Gerry on.

Holmes also discovered that while he had a granite chin, hit him on the temples and, "He wobbles like a duck." Doing everything as well as he could have, Gerry was never going to win the heavyweight title, but he might be remembered with the appreciation Ron Lyle is today.

Denis showed how nature intended for Gerry to box. The cultivation of his right hand showed how Gerry could improve on nature with Valle's assistance. Continually pumping his jab like he did to Dino showed his primary defensive asset to be ability to effectively utilize his height and reach, unique advantages for his era.

For himself personally though, the "Whacko Twins" did their job. After the $20,000,000.00 payoff for Holmes, Gerry was set for life. Only Buster Douglas's massive payoff for handing the title to Holyfield compares in recent decades for single fight retirement planning. They seem to have been wisely conservative with their money since, knowing they'd won the boxing lottery and couldn't count on ever having that influx of cash again.

 

No.

His record was built on badly faded big names. It looks good on boxrec, but not if you put it in context

He showed in the Holmes fight he was a top 10 guy, but nothing more. He didn't prove to be any better than Snipes and certainly was not as good as a guy like Witherspoon.

His management should have gotten him back in the ring sooner after the Holmes fight and matched him with some legitimate top 10 guys to try to get him some confidence. Instead they just built him up again against softies to get another big payday.

 

I don't think he was scared.

There were probably a few reasons

One, he was white and white heavyweights are (or were) popular with the fans. His management knew they could milk this and knew they could maneuver him in to a title fight with Holmes without going the usual route of having to fight a top opponent first.

Secondly, his management probably wanted to steer clear of Don King until they got Gerry a title shot and then they would have to deal with him. King would demand options if Gerry beat Holmes but that would be okay with his management because at least he would have the title.

Guys like Dokes and Page were high risk and controlled by King, so his management was smart not to go there.

 

Well that wasn't a prime ****ey. Years of relative inactivity affected him more than say, Ray Leonard. ****ey had like a total of three fights between the Holmes loss and the Spinks loss - a five year time span.

In his prime, he would have been more dangerous to a guy like Spinks. Spinks probably would have won, but it wouldn't have been that one sided. The ****ey that fought Holmes would have not gotten half beat to death by Spinks.

 

My old coach was a sparring partner of ****ey and said that big Gerry was a chicken ****.checking the the size of their gloves before he sparred with them.

 

He isn't underrated even by a little bit. He's judged quite accurately on the basis of his truncated, limited and less than fulfilled career. Getting his ass beaten so comprehensively by the much smaller Michael Spinks did more damage than the losses to Holmes or Foreman....and by the way both Holmes and Foreman ko'ed him too. All he did prior to these ko defeats was to beat up a trio of washed up ex-name heavies....and Jimmy wasn't even convincing beaten....without that cut, he would have made Gerry look silly.

 

It's a shame his management didn't steer him to Weaver, he might have made out better.