BoxRec

How good was he? He beat Norton , Young and Lyle for axample , but they were old.... He had a good fight with Larry Holmes , but was he a real world-class-fighter?

Gerry was a good Heavyweight contender with a tremendous left hook. I believe that his problem was that he was a guy who was very sensitive to his critics claims of such easy competition early in his career. He is/was a smart guy and I think he himself started to question why his management team,Mike Jones and Dennis Rappaport were putting him in such easy fights. Did they not have confidence in his ability? I think in this may have had a very adverse effect on gerrys confidence.Never a good thing for a fighter.

expug wrote:Did they not have confidence in his ability? I think in this may have had a very adverse effect on gerrys confidence.Never a good thing for a fighter.

Thats always been my take on the situation as well.

expug wrote:Gerry was a good Heavyweight contender with a tremendous left hook. I believe that his problem was that he was a guy who was very sensitive to his critics claims of such easy competition early in his career. He is/was a smart guy and I think he himself started to question why his management team,Mike Jones and Dennis Rappaport were putting him in such easy fights. Did they not have confidence in his ability? I think in this may have had a very adverse effect on gerrys confidence.Never a good thing for a fighter.

Good insight, expug. I think he might have gone a bit further with a different management team. But, he did get some great paydays. 10 million bucks as I recall for the Holmes fight. Not to be sneezed at.

There was an interview with him on an ESPN card a little while back. He is still doing some work helping ex fighters adjust to "civilian" life. I was impressed with his comments and his joviality.

Collins2000 wrote:

expug wrote:Gerry was a good Heavyweight contender with a tremendous left hook. I believe that his problem was that he was a guy who was very sensitive to his critics claims of such easy competition early in his career. He is/was a smart guy and I think he himself started to question why his management team,Mike Jones and Dennis Rappaport were putting him in such easy fights. Did they not have confidence in his ability? I think in this may have had a very adverse effect on gerrys confidence.Never a good thing for a fighter.

Good insight, expug. I think he might have gone a bit further with a different management team. But, he did get some great paydays. 10 million bucks as I recall for the Holmes fight. Not to be sneezed at.

There was an interview with him on an ESPN card a little while back. He is still doing some work helping ex fighters adjust to "civilian" life. I was impressed with his comments and his joviality.

I forgot about that organization,I believe it is called F.I.S.T.I hope it works out.

He was one of the better fighters of the 80's. Good heavyweight contender.

I too agree with expug.

We never saw the best of Cooney. He put up a good fight against Cooney and I'm sure people would have wanted to see a rematch further down the line, possibly as a unification fight as Gerry could surely have won an alpha title, after all everyone else did.

FIST website.

http://www.fist.org/index.htm