SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Being more accomplished than Cooney isn't exactly nominating someone for the HOF. Just stating the obvious.
Yes, because being sparked by michael bentt, dropped twice by an 8-8 Ross Purity, creamed by Mercer, nearly beaten by a shot Carl Williams and having his jaw broken against a high level journeyman with average power is quite the distinction
SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Being more accomplished than Cooney isn't exactly nominating someone for the HOF. Just stating the obvious.
Yes, because being sparked by michael bentt, dropped twice by an 8-8 Ross Purity, creamed by Mercer, nearly beaten by a shot Carl Williams and having his jaw broken against a high level journeyman with average power is quite the distinction
SaadOffTheDeck wrote:Being more accomplished than Cooney isn't exactly nominating someone for the HOF. Just stating the obvious.
Yes, because being sparked by michael bentt, dropped twice by an 8-8 Ross Purity, creamed by Mercer, nearly beaten by a shot Carl Williams and having his jaw broken against a high level journeyman with average power is quite the distinction
drunkenpiper36 wrote:
Yes, because being sparked by michael bentt, dropped twice by an 8-8 Ross Purity, creamed by Mercer, nearly beaten by a shot Carl Williams and having his jaw broken against a high level journeyman with average power is quite the distinction
That is so cool when you do that... It seriously leaves one with the impression that you know something they don't, but have better things to do than to respond to them, leaving that person feeling totally inadequate..
That is so cool when you do that... It seriously leaves one with the impression that you know something they don't, but have better things to do than to respond to them, leaving that person feeling totally inadequate..
Bodyshot3 wrote:
I am not sure whether he really ranks any higher than Duane Bobick (perhaps harsh) and he is possibly behind Morrison and Quarry in terms of his achievements as a post-Marciano white American heavyweight. Coetzee strikes me as being the most relevant white heavyweight of that particular timeframe and by some distance.
And don't let Cooney boy fool you; Foreman, Williams and Ruddock are all far better results than anything Gerry put forth. He was better than Bobick though, that is harsh.
Bodyshot3 wrote:
I am not sure whether he really ranks any higher than Duane Bobick (perhaps harsh) and he is possibly behind Morrison and Quarry in terms of his achievements as a post-Marciano white American heavyweight. Coetzee strikes me as being the most relevant white heavyweight of that particular timeframe and by some distance.
And don't let Cooney boy fool you; Foreman, Williams and Ruddock are all far better results than anything Gerry put forth. He was better than Bobick though, that is harsh.
Bodyshot3 wrote:
I am not sure whether he really ranks any higher than Duane Bobick (perhaps harsh) and he is possibly behind Morrison and Quarry in terms of his achievements as a post-Marciano white American heavyweight. Coetzee strikes me as being the most relevant white heavyweight of that particular timeframe and by some distance.
And don't let Cooney boy fool you; Foreman, Williams and Ruddock are all far better results than anything Gerry put forth. He was better than Bobick though, that is harsh.
drunkenpiper36 wrote:
He was over hyped and over ranked in his day.. But he's also too harshly judged on his past prime performances and unduly criticized for fighting " nobody." Whilst its true that Norton, Lyle and Young were past their primes, with at least two of them ( Lyle and Norton ) being shot, I doubt an honest person could list more than perhaps 10-12 fighters in 1980 who were better than those three, and even fewer who would have done to them what Cooney did. And even though Eddie Gregg, Phillip Brown, Eddie Lopez, George Chaplin and Dino Denis were hardly world beaters they weren't tomato cans either. All were dispatched with ease.. What Cooney has are emphatic wins over semi-decent opposition and a competitive loss to an ATG in his prime. Nothing wrong with that, but what's missing is the "middle". We never saw him beat nor even fight someone who was better than an aging Young, yet perhaps a step or two below a Larry Holmes.. For this reason I concur that his legacy is inflated. But I don't buy into the usual notion on a lot of these forums that he would have just "dropped" to anyone with a heart beat..
You're right on about "the middle". Excellent post.
drunkenpiper36 wrote:
He was over hyped and over ranked in his day.. But he's also too harshly judged on his past prime performances and unduly criticized for fighting " nobody." Whilst its true that Norton, Lyle and Young were past their primes, with at least two of them ( Lyle and Norton ) being shot, I doubt an honest person could list more than perhaps 10-12 fighters in 1980 who were better than those three, and even fewer who would have done to them what Cooney did. And even though Eddie Gregg, Phillip Brown, Eddie Lopez, George Chaplin and Dino Denis were hardly world beaters they weren't tomato cans either. All were dispatched with ease.. What Cooney has are emphatic wins over semi-decent opposition and a competitive loss to an ATG in his prime. Nothing wrong with that, but what's missing is the "middle". We never saw him beat nor even fight someone who was better than an aging Young, yet perhaps a step or two below a Larry Holmes.. For this reason I concur that his legacy is inflated. But I don't buy into the usual notion on a lot of these forums that he would have just "dropped" to anyone with a heart beat..
You're right on about "the middle". Excellent post.
That was a solid post, I must have missed it while he was arguing with emoticons. Though I'd rate Chaplin over the Young he faced.
drunkenpiper36 wrote:
He was over hyped and over ranked in his day.. But he's also too harshly judged on his past prime performances and unduly criticized for fighting " nobody." Whilst its true that Norton, Lyle and Young were past their primes, with at least two of them ( Lyle and Norton ) being shot, I doubt an honest person could list more than perhaps 10-12 fighters in 1980 who were better than those three, and even fewer who would have done to them what Cooney did. And even though Eddie Gregg, Phillip Brown, Eddie Lopez, George Chaplin and Dino Denis were hardly world beaters they weren't tomato cans either. All were dispatched with ease.. What Cooney has are emphatic wins over semi-decent opposition and a competitive loss to an ATG in his prime. Nothing wrong with that, but what's missing is the "middle". We never saw him beat nor even fight someone who was better than an aging Young, yet perhaps a step or two below a Larry Holmes.. For this reason I concur that his legacy is inflated. But I don't buy into the usual notion on a lot of these forums that he would have just "dropped" to anyone with a heart beat..
You're right on about "the middle". Excellent post.
It was a good synopsis. Funny thing is that early Cooney looked like he was headed for a "middle". It's usually forgotten that he fought Eddie "The Animal" Lopez early on and that opponent choice didn't fit the later pattern. At the time, Tom Prater was an above average heavy too. I remember when Prater came back to Indy after the fight and talked about it at the PAL gym- he was almost reverent about Cooney's power.
Eddie Lopez
Age........... 25 years, 10 months
Height........ 6' 1"
Weight....... 212 lbs.
Record....... 12-1-0 {8 KO's}
The 8-Round undercard bout was to 'showcase' the young undefeated New York Heavyweight prospect.
The word in Miami Beach, was that the Cooney Camp was afraid to let Gerry get into the Ring to spar a couple
of Rounds with South African 'bomber' Kallie Knoetze.
Los Angeles, Eddie 'Animal' Lopez was regarded as to be a stiff test for Gerry. But, Eddie was virtually invisible
since losing a 'close' 6-Round Majority-Decision to 'Big' John Tate back in September 1977. Lopez had only
2-bouts over the past '16-Months', and this would be his 1st-Bout in 5-Months, since fighting in August 1978.
To say that Eddie 'Animal Lopez was stale, would be an understatement.
LOL@ calling a 25 year old guy who had just fought a 10 rounder 5 months earlier "stale".
Lopez was a tough, aggressive fighter and a good test, especially coming off of his win over Gordon. He was fun to watch and pretty well thought of until Monroe beat the piss out of him.
And no, he was anything but stale when he fought Cooney.
Only '2' bouts in the previous 15-Months.........Sounds 'stale' to 99.9% of the other Humans on this Planet.
There ya go. A fight poster showing an ad for the match I just mentioned proves everything. Yes, he was 25 years of age and had just gone 10 rounds to beat a game opponent, five months prior to facing Cooney, who himself was only 22 and had umpteen number of bouts. I don't see a real argument here which bolsters cooney fighting a corpse. Sorry.
DD 
