Your Gerry Cooney s manager in the early 1940 s. Obviously it's a shot at Joe Louis which is the big prize but who would you have him fight and who avoid to try to get a title shot?
From my admittedly scant knowledge of many of the fleeting contenders of this era,I would put him in with. Thomas Burman Bettina Dorazio London Hart Kahut Schott Woodcock Avoiding. Charles Walcott No brainers. Missing . Bivins Ray Baksi Murray Toles Thompson Gomez Sheppard Maxim Mauriello B Baer Simon
Morning McVey, yes a few of those could be ideal for Cooney to look a promising prospect. He'd have quite a size and weight advantage against majority of em. Wonder how Walcott would fare? He and Buddy could be good.
You have to get him good fighters to earn the shot, is the tricky part. How far can you edge that premise without getting him KO’d.
Well he may be lucky (or unlucky enough), to get a title shot against Joe Louis, it depends on if we think Cooney could beat the best names of the time.
One guy for Cooney to avoid would have been Galento. Cooney may have gotten the same beating that another prospect named Lou Nova got .
Max Baer is oven ready to be taken at this point, and he is the #1 contender, but even this version of him is dangerous. I would probably steer him clear of Godoy Franklin and Bivins. #2 ranked Mauriello might be the safest route to a quick title shot in 1942.
Assuming he was the same Cooney from the early 80s. But going into the 40’s, he’d earn a high rating and probably beat a lot of good contenders from the day. The draw back is that you had to be tough back then and if he sustained a surprise loss I don’t know if he had the resolve to recover from it.
He's got a good chance against Louis, to be honest. At least that confident, strutting Cooney before he met Holmes and cocaine.
I'm picturing Galento in about the 5th round with Cooney: Mouth wide open, eyes looking like slits despite the fact that his eyebrows are mid-forehead. He's clearly tiring and bleeding from just about every orifice thanks to Cooney's left hand. His desperate, flailing, off-balance charges are becoming less and less effective. He's fouling out of instinct, trying to headbutt, but he's too short to do it effectively against the 6'6" Cooney, so he resorts to low blows. He's eating left hooks to the head and body now. After getting bounced around for the last 30 seconds, he stumbles back to his corner, and his corner men decide he's had enough. And that's how I see it going. Cooney stops that fat slob after 5.