Gerry Cooney vs Ingemar Johannson

Again this is no way to completely gage Cooney's career ... in the only significant test of his career near a prime he fought very respectfully against a prime Holmes. This was coming off an injury and a one year period of inactivity as his management choose to make money over fully developing him as a fighter ... post Holmes he had no career so to factor those losses are as best incompletes ..

Ingo to me caught Machen with a one in a hundred shot the night he defeated him ... I do not think if they fought ten more time Ingo wins once ... then he did beat Floyd but as brave as Floyd was he never was that good as a heavyweight. His reign was pathetically weak, his opposition terrible and he was not respected as a fighter at all ... I have asked many times who were the three best heavyweights Floyd ever beat and no one really has any quality answers .. to me Ingo was a one trick pony with poor conditioning, a weak chin and completely without a warrior's heart .. he was completely destroyed by Patterson in the rematch and their rubber match showed how limited both guys were ... neither was highly respected in their day ..

I think the Cooney that fought Lyle stops Ingo early ... Ingo could surprise but I doubt it ..

 

Cooney blew out old, past it versions of Norton and Lyle...and only stopped Young on a cut...never coming close to hurting him or having him down...no victories against anyone substantial...wasn't especially rugged..decked and hurt by Holmes, though i give him credit for hanging in there until the end, and was mercilessly chewed up and decked by the much smaller Michael Spinks and a comebacking, bald, fat, slow senior citizen George Foreman. If you're going to have a plausible matchup involving Ingemar Johansson, then it's only fair to consider the prime version of Ingo..the trim, confident, version who utterly destroyed Eddie Machen, a real live opponent at the time who would go on to take Sonny Liston to the limit, and the 7 knockdown conquerer of heavyweight champion Floyd Patterson...a greater feat than Gerry ever accomplished.
I don't think this matchup is being thought out too well by you guys.

 

Agree!!

 

Ingo is very underrated on this forum, many people here thinks he is a fluke.
Still he is the only champ who didnt fought an opponent with a losing record.
About Cooney being to big, Ingo demolished Ten Hoff the first round who outweighed him 28 pounds.
I think Ingo`s right slips through Conney`s defense any day of the week.

 

People who pick Cooney don't know **** about boxing.

Johansson beat every fighter he ever stepped up against and many of his opponents were far better than Cooney.

 

And Cooney is overrated here as well.

 

Cooney performed valiantly against Holmes, though it was proven that he couldn't take a punch real well, but the book on Gerry was written when Spinks destroyed him...a man that big had no business being battered and decked so remorselessly by a smaller man like that...even if the smaller man was Michael Spinks. The ko loss to Foreman only put a final period in the book.

 

You're argument is flawed in how you present the Spinks and Foreman fights .. the Spinks fight was five years afgter the Holmes fight and Gerry had long since stopped being a fighter ... the Foreman was eight years after .. in addition, I feel without question both Spinks and that Foreman would have destroyed a prime Ingo as well ... you mention the Liston fight and I return serve by using that as proof that INgo got incredibly lucky against Machen ..

THe best barometers to gage Info by are the second and third Patterson fights ... in the second he was destroyed and in the third, against a Floyd back down on Earth, he was flattened again .. I have no dislike for Ingo but simply put him where he belongs which is at the lowest tier of former heavyweight champions .. he's right in with Braddock and Carnera in my book .. he was a one handed, poorly conditioned , easily hit fighter with a poor chin and not much heart.

 

The lowest tier of heavyweight champions is a level Cooney never attained.

 

Beating up has beens and never was's dosen't equal Ingo's accomplishments...and being "lucky" in koing Machen is strictly your opinion.

 

Ingo also beat Brian London, Hein Hoff, Erskine, and Cooper. Also, it's not like he just caught lightning in a bottle when he KO'd Machen.. It's pretty silly in my opinion that you think he got "lucky"...

 

yes i agree he is overrated and i am probably guilty of that but this is a fantasy match-up between to heavyweights who both have ko power and who have both been heavily ko'd and also are not fighters that possess a great defence so for me this is potentially a fight that could come down to who lands big first .is it really such a stretch to suggest that with his height and reach advantage that may be cooney .

 

well if we're using next to retirement versions of cooney why not use the version of ingo from his very last fight