How hyped were you for Holmes vs Cooney?

I was excited about the fight, and I studied both boxers very closely for a long time before the bout. I picked Cooney to win the bout, for reasons I'll explain below.

My reasons for picking Cooney were:

1. Holmes had shown numerous weaknesses in his bouts against Reynaldo Snipes and Trevor Berbick. It looked to me like he had trouble with physical guys who were strong enough, physical enough, and hard hitting enough to pressure him effectively. Given Cooney's size and powerful left-hook, I figured he could do even better than Berbick and Snipes did, and possibly this might be too much for Larry.

2. I thought Cooney's long, powerful, telephone-pole left jab would be just sufficiently effective to prevent Holmes from dominating the fight with own left jab. I was thinking that if Larry couldn't use his own jab effortlessly (as he was so used to doing), that would undermine his effectiveness just sufficiently that Cooney could force his way inside and take control of the fight.

3. I thought that once Cooney got inside against Holmes and began to score with his short hooks to the body and his left uppercut to the head, eventually he would hurt Larry. I figured also that if Cooney hurt Holmes, he would be powerful enough and aggressive enough to finish the job.

Of course, events proved me wrong. My biggest miscalculation was in overestimating Cooney's athleticism, and in failing to understand that Holmes's speed, fluidity, athleticism and boxing skill were so great that he would be able to keep Gerry at bay all night and prevent Cooney's jab and power from being too much of a factor in the fight.

As for the fight itself, Holmes dominated. I thought Larry won at least nine of the twelve completed rounds in the fight. Cooney fought well, but he wasn't in Holmes's league in terms of actual boxing ability or athletic giftedness.

I'm certain that Cooney would have done better against Holmes if not for the fact that he was inactive for fourteen months prior to the match. Obviously Cooney was rusty. But even if Cooney had been 100% prepared for the bout, he would not have been able to beat Holmes, who clearly is one of history's top five all-time heavyweights.

Regarding how the fight ended, I think Cooney fell from fatigue more than anything else. He was exhausted and he could no longer fend off Holmes's punches, which led quickly to his legs collapsing in the thirteenth round.

 

Golden post