On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:56:40 -0600, SkippyPB wrote
(in article <gi0cd59pi2aoghe379aoifbifgpp18nrmi at (no spam) 4ax.com>):

I remember seeing that Cooney/Holmes fight. Cooney never moved his
feet, never jabbed enough to keep Holmes off of him and if not for his
strong chin, would have been kissing the canvas numerous times. There
was a lot of hype leading up to that fight but I never thought Cooney
was that good.

Regards,


Well, fair enough. Holmes didn't have the cakewalk that was expected as
Cooney was one tough cookie and he didn't want to quit when the fight was
called. I mean, he was finished but he didn't want to quit so he had a lot
of heart and soul in the ring. I wonder what he thinks of it now...

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:50:26 -0600, Ruddell
ruddell'Elle-Kabong' at (no spam) canada.com> wrote:

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 10:56:40 -0600, SkippyPB wrote
(in article <gi0cd59pi2aoghe379aoifbifgpp18nrmi at (no spam) 4ax.com>):

I remember seeing that Cooney/Holmes fight. Cooney never moved his
feet, never jabbed enough to keep Holmes off of him and if not for his
strong chin, would have been kissing the canvas numerous times. There
was a lot of hype leading up to that fight but I never thought Cooney
was that good.

Regards,


Well, fair enough. Holmes didn't have the cakewalk that was expected as
Cooney was one tough cookie and he didn't want to quit when the fight was
called. I mean, he was finished but he didn't want to quit so he had a lot
of heart and soul in the ring. I wonder what he thinks of it now...

Dennis, protestations are ever preceded by a looming defeat. It adds
to the effort not to be seen as a loser. Gerry Cooney was not a loser,
but it seems to have ruminated in his head for quite awhile.

The tough cookie might be true; however, Gerry Cooney was not prepared
well to fight the likes of Larry Holmes, a real tough cookie with one
of the longest and most accurate well-timed jabs ever.

Just an opinion.

On Oct 13, 5:25 pm, jalexa9898 <jalexa9... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:
Which do you think?

Overrated. And easy to assess. He lost to all the good fighters he
fought and beat the poor ones. There are no complexities on his
record, such as one finds with many fighters who beat A and lost to B
even though A was the greater boxer.

The worst fighter he lost to was Spinks or old Foreman, and the best
fighter he beat was probably a shot Norton coming off a win, draw and
loss from Tex Cobb, Le Doux and Shavers. So he is somewhat worse than
Spinks and old Foreman as a heavyweight, and a little better than an
old Norton. However, one hears people rate him much higher than this,
claiming that only Holmes could have beaten him, could have been a
great, etc etc.

On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:09:24 -0700, Loki <cubby77... at (no spam) aol.com> wrote:
On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:59:07 +0200, Walter Mitty <mitti... at (no spam) gmail.com
wrote:

Loki <cubby77... at (no spam) aol.com> writes:

On Wed, 14 Oct 2009 06:22:17 +0200, Walter Mitty <mitti... at (no spam) gmail.com
wrote:

Ruddell <ruddell'Elle-Kabo... at (no spam) canada.com> writes:

On Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:57:05 -0600, Walter Mitty wrote
(in article <hb3em1$j2... at (no spam) news.eternal-september.org>):

Are you on the cat nip again?

He would not get close to either Klit.

He was a totally and utterly overrated "White Man". Nothing in his
record suggests he had what it takes at the top. Was the top better
then? Sure. But we have two pretty dominant champs now.

He has one and only one name on his resume : that of Norton. Whom he
duly retired. But lets be real : Norton was 38 and had won only 5 out of
his last 10 and Cooney was 25 and "hot". Cooney's record up to then was
a classic "who the hell are they" read. In other words they used a
washed up ageing "has been" to launch Cooney into the ring with Holmes.

I tend to agree with Strategy as Gerry was a good fighter.   Sure, Larry beat
him fair and square but it certainly wasn't a cakewalk for him.  He worked
for his money that night and so did Gerry...

No one has said he was not a good fighter. But he was never a contender
and was totally over hyped.

How can you say he was never a contender? He was undefeated, and beat
the snot out of everyone he faced prior to Holmes.

A contender for greatness. Clearly he was a "contender" for the title

Would you consider George Foreman to be a contender for greatness? If
so, why? Who do you think Foreman beat when he was at the top of his
game who Cooney at the top of his game would not have beaten?

In the matter of George Foreman, all I remember is those sledge hammer
lefts and rights. The sounds of deep, thunderous body shots, his
little noticed short, lightening bold left hooks that came from
differing angles. He really didn't box so much as he destroyed his
opponents.

Just a passing thought.

DCI  

Overrated at the time he fought Holmes, underrated now in that he's
thought of as this overrated dude who was supposed to beat Holmes, but
didn't really come close.

Are you on the cat nip again?

He would not get close to either Klit.

- Show quoted text -

Is that a serious question? Frazier's top of the list. Then prime
Norton, and Ron Lyle when he wasn't 39. Maybe Chuvalo.

And with their wade in styles, there is not a doubt in my mind that
Cooney would have taken all of them. Not that he was a better fighter,
it was a style thing.

But we don't have to look at mutual opponents of Foreman and Cooney in
order to decide which of them is the greater: Foreman beat Cooney when
Foreman was 41 and Cooney 33. Foreman is clearly a far greater fighter
than Cooney.

When they fought, Foreman was active. He had faced 5 opponents and
fought 27 rounds in the prior year. Cooney hadn't stepped into the
ring for almost three years. Additionally, Cooney had a cocaine
problem which, while his own fault, still took from him most of the
skills that he had when he was on his way up.

By the way, the same Jimmy Young who beat Foreman was KOd by Cooney.

I am not, by the way saying that Cooney was better than Foreman. I am
saying that the two were comparable.

I don't think that one can ever assume that a fighter is any better
than he has proved to be. To argue that Cooney was a potentially great
fighter when he never beat a good fighter is not much different to
arguing that you yourself could have been great if only you had tried
boxing. The burden of proof lay with Cooney, and he failed to meet it.

He destroyed Norton, Young, Lyle, and everyone else they put in front
of him until he faced Holmes, arguably one of the three greatest
heavyweights in history while he was at the top of his game.

- Show quoted text -

Is that a serious question? Frazier's top of the list. Then prime
Norton, and Ron Lyle when he wasn't 39. Maybe Chuvalo.

And with their wade in styles, there is not a doubt in my mind that
Cooney would have taken all of them. Not that he was a better fighter,
it was a style thing.

But we don't have to look at mutual opponents of Foreman and Cooney in
order to decide which of them is the greater: Foreman beat Cooney when
Foreman was 41 and Cooney 33. Foreman is clearly a far greater fighter
than Cooney.

When they fought, Foreman was active. He had faced 5 opponents and
fought 27 rounds in the prior year. Cooney hadn't stepped into the
ring for almost three years. Additionally, Cooney had a cocaine
problem which, while his own fault, still took from him most of the
skills that he had when he was on his way up.

By the way, the same Jimmy Young who beat Foreman was KOd by Cooney.


Jimmy Young was in his prime in 1975 and 1976 when he beat Lyle twice, lost
a close fight to Ali as
well as Norton. I have the Young defeat of Foreman on dvd and when i
watched the fight i was pretty
surprised how one sided it was, far more than I expected. Young is still
underrated today. Good fighter is a damn
tough era.

Young had declined signifantly by the time he fought Cooney in 1980. He had
already lost to the underwhelming
Ossie Ocasio twice and to Michael Dokes.

On Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:32:49 -0700, "Vanman" <Vancanste at (no spam) shaw.ca
wrote:



- Show quoted text -

Is that a serious question? Frazier's top of the list. Then prime
Norton, and Ron Lyle when he wasn't 39. Maybe Chuvalo.

And with their wade in styles, there is not a doubt in my mind that
Cooney would have taken all of them. Not that he was a better fighter,
it was a style thing.

But we don't have to look at mutual opponents of Foreman and Cooney in
order to decide which of them is the greater: Foreman beat Cooney when
Foreman was 41 and Cooney 33. Foreman is clearly a far greater fighter
than Cooney.

When they fought, Foreman was active. He had faced 5 opponents and
fought 27 rounds in the prior year. Cooney hadn't stepped into the
ring for almost three years. Additionally, Cooney had a cocaine
problem which, while his own fault, still took from him most of the
skills that he had when he was on his way up.

By the way, the same Jimmy Young who beat Foreman was KOd by Cooney.


Jimmy Young was in his prime in 1975 and 1976 when he beat Lyle twice,
lost
a close fight to Ali as
well as Norton. I have the Young defeat of Foreman on dvd and when i
watched the fight i was pretty
surprised how one sided it was, far more than I expected. Young is still
underrated today. Good fighter is a damn
tough era.

Young had declined signifantly by the time he fought Cooney in 1980. He
had
already lost to the underwhelming
Ossie Ocasio twice and to Michael Dokes.

Yes he had, which was what I was waiting for someone to point out.
Cooney was criticized for losing to Foreman, even though Foreman was
much older. At the time they fought, Cooney had been pretty much
inactive with a cocaine problem for 2 1/2 years prior to facing a very
active Foreman.

As such, the Foreman fight no more represented a prime Cooney than the
Jimmy Young who stepped into the ring with Cooney was Young at his
best. And, by the way, had Young been at the top of his game, I think
he would have owned Cooney pretty much the same way he owned Foreman.


Point made and accurately so. I agree that a prime Young would have beaten a

Put me down for totally overrated.

Oh, and I also think Larry Holmes was overrated. Predictably crafty.
Smart. But nowhere close to an all time great.

On Oct 15, 8:53 pm, pablo <pa... at (no spam) simplyhombre.net> wrote:
Put me down for totally overrated.

Oh, and I also think Larry Holmes was overrated. Predictably crafty.
Smart. But nowhere close to an all time great.




Cooney was the 'Great White Hype', beating up a bunch of has beens and
never was's. Probably his best fight was the Holmes fight, low-blows
and all. Holmes would never be on anyone's list of 'greatest ever',
for sure, but he would have been remembered in a better light if he
hadn't re-acted like a bitch after the Spinks fights.

On Oct 13, 7:57 pm, Walter Mitty <mitti... at (no spam) gmail.com> wrote:

Are you on the cat nip again?

He would not get close to either Klit.

They said that about Sanders and he mopped the floor with WK, old and
over the hill as he was supposed to be. I would not write off Cooney -
one thing he did have was one punch power, more so than the K's have.

On Fri, 16 Oct 2009 19:41:40 -0700 (PDT), "*ernie"
alreadydeleted9 at (no spam) hotmail.com> wrote:
Cooney was the 'Great White Hype', beating up a bunch of has beens and
never was's. Probably his best fight was the Holmes fight, low-blows
and all. Holmes would never be on anyone's list of 'greatest ever',
for sure, but he would have been remembered in a better light if he
hadn't re-acted like a bitch after the Spinks fights.

Holmes would be in the top 5, if not higher on the "greatest list" of
anyone who knows anything about boxing.

He was champion for 7 years, defended the title more than anyone else
save Joe Louis, had one of the best jabs in heavyweight history, and
could take the best shots of some of the hardest hitters in history.

I rank him as number three of all time behind only Ali and Louis, and
am not sure that he shouldn't be higher.