Gerry Cooney vs Wilders opponents.

I hear you, and lots of people said this at the time, but each and everyone you could include in this were all very good at dropping the ball when it mattered.

Without those belts all of those guys wouldn’t have been ready to challenge Larry without winning the fight that gifted them the bogus title in the first place, so let’s look at their next fight..

Tate what happened to him? First defence. Pop.

Dokes, first defence. A draw. Was he really good enough in that draw to beat Larry Holmes around the time Larry was knocking out Leon Spinks?

Next fight Dokes was crushed by Coetzee. The performance of Dokes losing to Larry who was beating Scott Frank and Frazier at that time was too hot for what Dokes produced against Coetzee. Damn, Marvis was probably too hot for Dokes of the Coetzee fight. That’s how much he sucked.

Coetzee? Having beat Dokes he then signed to meet Larry. A unification!

But the money ran out, the whole thing fell through so many times that the time limit expired where the sanctioning bodies were prepared to allow it to happen so both Larry and Coetzee were forced to defend their respective titles to other guys or get stripped.

They bothstill intended to unify after defending so Larry took on Bonecrusher Smith who had just beaten Frank Bruno. Coetzee took on Greg Page who was fresh off a loss to David Bey. Larry won his fight. Coetzee lost his fight. What happened next? Larry knocks out David Bey. Now, if Larry was so scared of Page, why did he fight Bey?


So was Larry going to lose to Coetzee the night Gerrie lost to Page? Why should he? Page couldn’t beat David Bey!

All of this leaves Weaver. A guy Larry stopped anyway.

A Tim Witherspoon rematch Could only really of happened about the time Tim dropped the ball against Thomas because to challenge Larry he would have needed the win like he had over Page to press his challenge. The same time I think Larry was chasing Coetzee for a fight. So it couldn’t happen.

Anyway, if it did happen, Tim sucked against Thomas. He said his brother in law died, he wasn’t himself. Well, that’s the performance he had to tackle Larry in a rematch with I wouldn’t have much hope for him.

 

Stiverne won a vacant belt and was the Ring rated number 3.

Norton was given a belt before fighting Holmes and was the number 2 rated heavyweight to close 1977. He didn’t win the belt. He won an eliminater and was given the belt later.

Now remind me where I said Wilder was undisputed? He wasn’t, and neither was Holmes.

 

Larry was linear. And even without being linear he was hands down the best because he beat more guys regarded closer to being the best or among the best of that period. It kinda burns anyone languishing at #3 in the world. And Larry outlasted them all. The others crashed and burned.

I didnt see wilder beat Wlad or Joshua or Fury. But I did see Larry beat Norton, Spinks, Ali, Berbick, Cooney, Weaver, Witherspoon, Bonecrusher, Bey, Snipes who all beat noteworthy relevant fighters.

what noteworthy or relevant fighter did Stiverne EVER beat? Or Brezeale? Or Ortiz?

 

Yeah, maybe technically Holmes wasn't undisputed but let's be honest - he was clearly the best fighter in the world for a long time. You can't say that about Wilder - he didn't beat any top contender and proved tobe far lesser fighter than Holmes. This comparison doesn't make any sense to me. Larry is one of 5 greatest HWs ever and Wilder will not reach my top 30.

 

Thank you!!!!!!!!! I thought for the last 12 years I was the only fan who knew this. You r great!!!!

 

I disagree with Holmes being lineal. He beat the corpse of Ali after Ali had retired, but never established a new lineage. He never beat the Ring rated number one contender in any year of his reign.
Ortiz beat Jennings who was top 5 and was the first to stop him.
Stiverne beat Arreola twice who was top ten, and was the first to ko him.
Breazeale only beat fringe guys, but isnt much of a standout Wilder opponent.

 

How can you disagree? Without beating the last linear champ he cleared up the Ring magazine 1977 top 3 by 1979. You can’t ask more than that. And then he beat the linear guy in 1980. He beat Leon Spinks too. Spinks, Ali, Norton. The WBA invented bogus champions by comparison.

The governing bodies and Ali’s retirement prevented that. Otherwise you prefer John Tate?

Do you have the monthly ratings to confirm this? Without seeing any, Everyone knows for certain that Wilder never beat a Ring Magazine number one contender. Or a number two contender. The justification of a number 3 contender is dubious.

Top 5? Nobody care who Jennings was. Ortiz failed a drugs test. It’s pitiful.

So? David Bey was rated a lot higher after beating Greg Page.

Wilder only beat fringe guys!

 

I would think it would be on you to prove he created a new lineage. I took a look at the annual ratings and it looks like he never did it.

Ali doesn't count because I said so. And you mentioned PEDs. Ali was loaded.

 

Cooney was an enigma. He had all the potential in the world it just wasn’t molded right and part of that was Gerry’s fault. When he turned pro he wanted to be trained by Cus D’Amato and they met and it didn’t go well partly because I think the Wacko Twins didn’t want it to go well because Cus said he would only train Gerry if he could also be his manager which would have cut out Rappaport and Jones. Cus would've had Gerry fighting 15 times his first year as a pro and 10 times his second year. He would have kept him active and honed him into a much more balanced fighter than Valle did. Cooney being young also didn't want to move up to the Catskill's in the middle of nowhere which D'Amato also required.

Cooney was scheduled to fight Weaver in October of 1981 which was 5 months after the Norton KO. Fight was scheduled to be at Caesar’s Palace in Vegas and would have been an ‘audition’ for the Holmes fight (At this time Cooney was WBC and WBA #1 contender) Weaver wanted the fight because of the money. Cooney was scheduled to make 5 mil plus an upside of the gate and Weaver was guaranteed 2.5 mil plus some upside. Arum was able to use back room deals to make the WBA not sanction the fight for title have his fighter Tillis inserted as 'mandatory' and they were going to strip Weaver if he signed to fight Cooney. Cooney's team also offered Tillis 300k to step aside and fight the winner and he turned it down which was very dumb in my opinion. When that fell through he had a fight scheduled with Joe Bugner for December 1981 which would have been a waste of time as Bugner was one of Gerry's main sparring partners at the time. Gerry pulled out with an 'injury'. Weaver would have been a winnable fight for Cooney as he was a fast starter and Weaver was a slow starter.

So what did Rappaport and Jones do? Let Cooney sit out for 13 months and schedule a fight outdoors in the heat of Las Vegas against Holmes who was a master boxer. Idiotic. It defies logic other than the 10 million dollar payday. Cooney was over trained and weak because he ended up having what was a 6 month training camp with a short break in the middle for the shoulder injury. He was also drinking and using drugs the whole camp and partying with his entourage he brought out to Palm Springs and then Vegas from back home in Huntington. Considering the circumstances Cooney did well to last 13 rounds. He was just outclassed by a better fighter. Holmes was open for the right hand the whole night (Snipes and Shavers had previously put Holmes down with right hands) and Cooney only threw it a handful of times while mostly jabbing and swinging wild inaccurate left hooks to the head or left hooks that were very low to the body.

After the Holmes fight Cooney sat out for 25 months and was never really a serious contender again because he refused to fight legit contenders. An example is the Wacko Twins had a deal with CBS for a 1 mil payday to put Cooney in the ring with John Tate in December of 1982 and Cooney didn't want it he preferred to sit on his bar stool at his restaurant drinking a bottle of scotch every night.

To show how absurd the Cooney and Wacko Twin relationship was CBS gave the twins a list of 7 opponents to pick from for Gerry to fight in December of 1984 - Page, Dokes, Mitch Green, Tubbs, Tucker, James Broad, or Carl Williams. Many of those would have been very winnable fights for Gerry especially the Green, Tubbs, Broad, or Williams fights. The Wacko Twins said no to all of them and countered with their own list of Jeff Sims, Mike Jamison, and Lucien Rodriguez. CBS said no and essentially knew Cooney was done as a serious fighter at that point if those were the only guys he was willing to fight. Cooney was a victim of himself and his awful management though some people say Rappaport and Jones couldn't have been that bad since Cooney had career earnings of almost 20 million. Like others have said Cooney really didn't want to be a fighter he was pushed into it by an over demanding alcoholic father. Cooney also found creative ways to either pull out of fights or not accept fights. Seems he was perpetually 'injured' as well.

As far as Cooney and Wilder go there isn't much difference between Cooney's first 25 fights and Wilder's first 33 fights. They were both coddled and overprotected and fought a lot of bums the only difference is Wilder was just more active and fighting more often. I don't see any reason why Gerry couldn't savagely KO Wilder's first 33 opponents as well.

 

Brilliant post. I agree Gerry was a very spoiled fighter.

After Holmes he was over as a fighter. Even After Norton he was only ever a part time fighter. A celebrity fighter.

Financially it had gotten too big a risk to want to start over. He or they or all of them were not prepared to do it.

As you say, with all that said, Wilder was more active and didn’t beat anyone Gerry would not have beat too.

 

great informative post. Thanks for this one. I think Weaver and Tate were both winnable for Gerry in 82. After Holmes Gerry had too much money and not enough desire. He was never the same. In 84 that list of cbs opponents was a good list. Sad Gerry’s team passed on them.

 

Larry is usually believed to have become the linear champion in 1980. I have seen a case made that by the Shavers defence, in the absence of Ali coming back, Larry had established himself as the premier champion because (without belts) he had defeated the worlds leading and logical challenger.

Anyway, @Boilermaker ,CBZ and @Rumsfeld endorse the linear claim of Larry Holmes. And that’s good enough for me.

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Terrific post!!!!!! Kudos!!!!$

 

"Premier champion" or new lineage? I see what you did there.

 

Gerry missed a huge opportunity to learn from the Holmes fight. He showed heart and courage and won some rounds. If he was serious about continuing his career he should have likely switched trainers. Gil Clancy reached out after the Holmes fight but was rebuffed by Jones and Rappaport who were the puppeteers for Cooney. Will Wilder be able to learn from his loss to Fury? He is much older than Gerry was when he fought Holmes. Time will tell.