Trevor Berbick vs Gerry Cooney

Agreed.

 

All those heavyweights were with Don King so they didn’t really have a choice. Don controlled division. There weren’t many other options out there as Arum only had one or two of the top 10.

 

sure, give me his email

 

Why don't you type something worth reading?

 

that's true, but Morelocks will never buy it. He should get hired by boxrec to rewrite all their articles and records.

 

But Weaver wanted to fight Cooney. The WBA forcing the Tillis fight was an Arum manoeuvre, I agree, but not because he feared Weaver would lose to Cooney. It was because he didn't have any rights to promote a Weaver-Cooney bout.

They did consider going ahead with the fight (and Weaver being stripped) and trying to get it recognised as a world title bout by the NABF. However, Weaver decided to keep his title and fight Tillis, with an agreement that the winner would fight Cooney next, which would be co-promoted by Arum. But Cooney's people were also in negotiations with Holmes and ultimately they decided to go that route instead. Weaver even sued to try to prevent Holmes-Cooney, arguing that Cooney was contracted to fight him next.

 

Would have preferred Weaver-Cooney to Weaver-Tillis.

 

Cooney wanted the title, so he wasn't going to avoid the champs. I do think he was kept away from fighters who might have derailed him before he got to a title fight.

 

I see Berlenbach has answered this one Goo.

 

Your comment was "ranked opposition". Absolutely Cooney never avoided Weaver he was after the title and Weaver had one of two. It was the better contenders he avoided and there was loads of articles about it in real time as it all happened.

Weaver - Cooney would have been fantastic if it went ahead. No matter who won it would have ended up in a massive unification fight against Holmes. Cooney was a huge commodity but Weaver's standing would have rose immeasurably if he beat Gerry and the unification would have still been big. If Cooney won against Weaver in impressive fashion a fight against Holmes would have been even bigger which is almost hard to imagine.

 

I agree...it probably would have been better than Cooney-Holmes, though the Holmes fight was pretty damn good imo.

I actually don't think Gerry's chin would have withstood too many flush shots from Weaver at the time. That said, depends on whether the Tillis "Sleepwalking" Weaver shows up.

 

The Whacko Twins adopted the "Protect The Title Shot" strategy late in Cooney's run. They matched him reasonably on the way up. Animal Lopez, Dino Dennis and Candyman Johnson were decent foes. Lyle and Norton were probably perceived low risks. Just saying that I don't think they thought of him as fragile goods. They wanted to recoup their investment financially likely. Remember that Mercado's manager admitted he lost 750K trying to get him a title shot in the same era and situation.

 

Weaver and Cooney would be an open fight. Cooney could well get him early as he's a slow starter but if Weaver lands something big on Cooney he'd be in a world of trouble. If Cooney had a few fights (or even one) against the likes of Trevor Berbick or someone we'd be able to assess a Weaver - Cooney match a lot more comfortably. So much unknown in there.