If Holmes retired after Cooney

Norton was ranked in the top 10 by virtue of beating the Undefeated Tex Cobb who in turn got in there by beating Shavers. Young was only 31 years old and inbetween winning streaks. I believe he also worked his way back into the lower part of the ten when he fought Greg Page Two years LATER. Lyle was 40 years old and like you said lost to Lynn Ball. His value was admittedly diminished. But he was still fighting actively and showed up in very good shape. Cooney knocked him out with a body shot that broke his rib. Can't think of too many heavyweights who would have done that back then. Lopez and Denis weren't anything special but also not terrible. Cooneys resume had adequate substance to justify a title shot.

 

Weaver v C00ney

Believe it or not this fight WAS supposed to happen. It was the title C00neys team wanted. Both greedy governing bodies made C00ney their official#1 contender so in reality C00neys people could take their pick of champions to fight, and they chose Weaver.

It was only Red Tape that prevented it.

enforcing their own rules backfired big time for the WBA when when it was learned Weaver had previously signed to meet "no other man" but James Quick Tillis when next returning to the ring or he would be stripped of his title. This was back when Tillis had been WBA #1 contender. presumably the WBA had forgot this when they saw C00ney dollar signs and promoted him to #1 contender over Tills. However, it was this "no other man" clause that saved Tillis and he was able to get his shot instead of C00ney.

For the first time in history a champion had been forced to fight the #4 contender over his #1 contender or get stripped of his title by his own governing body.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!

 

It's not really Cooney's fault that higher caliber contenders weren't fighting him. As mentioned Bob Arum basically kept Weaver away from Gerry while many of the other top fight guys were wrapped up in contracts with Don and Carl King. Cooney mentioned in an interview how finding decent fights between 1980-1982 was damn near impossible.

 

I have him at 5 or 6 in either scenario.

 

Cooney's mob never wanted Page or Dokes (and a couple of others) at the time. There was some clamouring for the bouts but they wanted to zero in on a title, and firstly it was Weaver's. When that fell thru they went Holmes.

The talk and belief at the time was that they wanted to take Cooney to a title shot with not too much resistance. This was true. The politics was more so at title level than contender level.

Cooney is such an interesting study. We don't know how truly good he was or how good he could have been under a different upbringing. Jumping straight from past it names to Holmes only told us he wasn't as good as Holmes. We don't truly know how he would have went against the viable contenders and Weaver.

Holmes was too big of a jump too early, but the money was insane and the jump taken. It would have been fascinating now with hindsight to see Cooney have a couple more fights against half decent fighters and then against a contender. Lets say another fringe contender, then Snipes, then say Berbick. I'm very confident he would have beaten a scared Snipes, and i think Berbick can't avoid his power enough.

He could then ideally fight Weaver who he would have been a very very realistic chance of beating, particularly after these learning and confidence building fights. Weaver is an extremely slow starter and Cooney is extremely dangerous early.

If this scenario did unfold after a defense or two he would have been much much better prepared to fight Holmes, both ability wise and mentally.

Of course crystal ball scenario's are just that and there are snags, but it isn't totally out of the realm of possibility imo.

Without entering the debate i am surprised to say i am falling heavily on unforgiven's side of the ledger. Rarely do i even remotely disagree with anything Boje or Goo post let alone both of them at once. First time for everything but it's great reading.

 

This is all very well.
But after Shavers lost for the second time to Holmes, he lost to Bernardo Mercado before losing to Cobb. Shavers was barely top 10, therefore Cobb wa barely top 10, and so Norton.
Further, Norton's win over Cobb was razor close and disputable, and his previous fight against LeDoux was a blatant gift, imo.
Maybe Norton was hanging inside the top 10 too, but it's clearly not a strong position and it is clearly a man on his way down.

"inbetween winning streaks", actually he'd won his last 2 fights. Jimmy Young was Cooney's best win, it's a decent win. The point that he'd already lost to young up-and-comers Ocasio (twice) and Dokes still stands.

Ron Lyle was all through. Perhaps the boxing promoters and TV broadcasters were still using his name recognition but he's not even top 20 at this point, in my opinion. He's not better than some of the no-names Cooney beat.

Yes, Gerry Cooney had a big punch, hence broken ribs etc.

They were okay opponents for that stage of Cooney's career.

I wouldn't suggest Cooney's title shot was unjustified.

I would dispute that he did enough to be considered the uncontested undisputed stand-out contender.
And I'd certainly dispute that he did enough to be considered a stand-out contender in historical comparisons across eras.

 

It's possible that if Cooney was brought all absolutely perfectly, fed the right fights at the right time and developed accordingly, he could have gone on and beat all those guys AND defeated Holmes.

But such "possibles" and "could haves" can be attached to a lot of fighters, especially those 1980s heavyweights.
No one had an ideal path created for them. And almost everyone had big setbacks, inside and outside the ring.

The reality is that Cooney wasn't matched with a Snipes or a Berbick, wasn't matched with his peers Page and Dokes. He didn't get a shot against Weaver.
If we get into a game of speculation, it would be a lot to expect him to beat as many as 3 of those 5. In my opinion.
That's putting an extra 3-0 on his record against a class of opponent he never proved he could beat.

There's really not enough to go on with Gerry Cooney. The best we can say is that he did okay against Holmes.

Strangely, I feel like my role is the reverse of the one I had in a debate we had a few months past where (if I remember rightly), I was arguing the case for John Mugabi while yourself and Bokaj (unless I'm misrembering) were sceptical of Mugabi's value based on the opposition he beat on his path to Hagler.

I might be wrong in perceiving Mugabi had wins more meaningful than what Cooney did (against somewhat more youthful/relevant opponents). Perhaps I have more reason to be sceptical of Mugabi if it turns out his case is actually similar to Cooney's, and in time I will take another look. Not that we need to go over that again.

But I guess my point would be: anyone who is sceptical in Mugabi's case I would have expected to be at least as sceptical of Cooney.

 

All true. I do believe he would have whupped Snipes tho, very confident on this one. I'd also favor him over Berbick but with less confidence. The board thrives on speculation all day every day so i've given it a whirl.

I understand your point but there's a tad more going on for me.

You would see not that long ago i attacked Cooney's resume and victories over Lyle, Norton and Young myself. I debated against the esteem many seem to hold him in as he was unproven against live bodies, for sure.

I don't think however it is much of a leap at all to expect him to beat Snipes, particularly given the way he performed vs another big puncher in Coetzee, especially mentally. Berbick was limited imo but fortunate to live in an era where inconsistency below Holmes reigned supreme. Berbick was a bit more consistent than most of them and cashed in nicely vias dedication and effort.

Even Weaver is a bit of an anomoly. I do think he was the second best Heavyweight all along after beating Tate up to and including the Dokes rematch. He was tho a slow starter and Dokes showed he could be caught cold even if it was a bit tainted.

It would have taken a lot of speculated improvement tho for Cooney to best Holmes. I'm dubious he would have got there but he certainly could have been a more dangerous and live opponent if my speculated path came to fruition.

Where things differ for me with Cooney and Mugabi is that Cooney barely fought thereafter. He didn't fight for two years. He then beat two lower level guys. He then had about 18 months off before beating a fringe guy at best. He then fought Spinks a year later having had one fight in near three years and realistically being inactive for all intents and purposes post Holmes.

Mugabi did at least fight post Hagler and was rolled straight away by a reasonable contender, one better than anyone he'd been beating. Unlike so many i do not automatically give him a free pass as ruined after the Hagler fight. This in turn leads me to believe he would have been exposed by better contenders pre Hagler. I also look at the Green fight where he was in all sorts of huge trouble but survived almost soley due to Green just not being that good.

With Cooney i think he could have beat a higher level of contender than he did, certainly a Snipes, maybe a Berbick. Nothing prior to Holmes leads me to believe he couldn't and given he didn't really fight let alone pop into the ring with mid level contenders post Holmes i have nothing to make me think he may not have been able to beat them.

 

Yes, this is all true.
I guess my contention is that there's no reason to believe Cooney would be any MORE consistent than any of the others, could certainly have turned out to be a disaster after his first loss (whoever it was to) like many "destroyer"-type punchers are when they step up, and in the absence of him being tested at all against that top-tier-behind-Holmes his rating is best treated with caution.

I give Mugabi quite a pass for the Duane Thomas loss based on that it appeared to be the result of an accidental but bad thumb in the eye.
Not to take anything away from Thomas, it's true he was a bit better than anyone Mugabi had beat anyway.

You're right about Mugabi-Green but I'd say Green was STILL perhaps better/more risky than they guys Cooney was matched with pre-Holmes. As were a couple of others Muagbi faced. Maybe not by much.

Well, no one gave Berbick much chance against Tate, Page or Thomas, and he beat all three, so I'd feel foolish picking Cooney against him. It's possible of course.
Cooney could beat Snipes, and I might even say "would probably beat" Snipes.

All this speculation is fair game and the possibilities are endless.

 

I agree with all this.

It's quite sad actually how Cooney's career turned out, not because "he didn't live up to the hype" but more because he didn't get some of these fights we've talking about (win, lose or draw).

 

Fair enough and good points. Cooney DID say however in an interview which I viewed years ago that he had problems getting quality fights with contenders who were locked up under king and Arum's payroll between 1980-1982. But like all interviews there are always conflicting stories.