I'm not high on Cooney but he would viciously KO Carnera. Hell I'd favor the Cooney of the Foreman fight (perhaps even the Spinks fight) to beat Carnera.
I tend to agree with this, in the main (although, not with the version that fought Spinks - there are old ladies who could have beaten that version of Cooney).
Outside of a good performance in a losing effort against Holmes, what is there to suggest that Cooney was in Carnera's class?
I don't think Carnera was a spectacular class ever. He was physically superior to the boxers of his time. Even so, he lost to boxers who are lighter than him by 60-70 pounds; repeatedly. Carnera was "lucky" not to have weighed around 200 pounds at that age or he would never have been a world champion. Outside of a good release against Holmes, Gerry Cooney had back-to-back wins over Jimmy Young, Ron Lyle, and Ken Norton (although all three were past prime) which were also good releases. I consider the fight with Holmes to be Cooney's peak. I don't think that a boxer's peak has to be a victory. For example IMO the peak of Ray Mercer was the fight with Lewis, although he lost.
Here is the problem with Cooney. Yes he destroyed some name fighters, who were no longer a fact or in the division. However he never beat a contender ranked in teh top ten. Not even one. He never beat a Trevor Berbick or Greg Page, or any of the other contenders who mattered at teh time. Now whatever you think of Carnera, he beat a whole heap of relevant fighters.
In a fantasy head-to-head speculation, a single good performance on the part of one of the boxers in question - losing effort or no - is sufficient to base a pick on. This is especially the case when that one performance was given in a class markedly superior to that of the other boxer in question.
Like he failed to level 84 lbs lighter Loughran? Carnera was NOT a puncher and appears on no credible lists as one.
