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Ringside Report Looks Back at Two Time Title Challenger “Gentleman” Gerry Cooney

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By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

In recent photographs it is clear that he still has the looks. He may be much older than when he was at his prime fighting but Gerry Cooney 28-3, 24 KO’s looks too good for his age and too good for the experiences he has had throughout it.

The Great White Hope, or preferably Gentleman Gerry, was evidently more hope than expectation in a time when color often defined a media circus that turned up in droves to see if the latest guy in white could derail the colored grip on the world heavyweight title. Unashamedly Don King heightened the drama through one creed taking on another. Cooney, despite the hype and the excitement may never have won a world title but what a career he had in the trying.

Born in 1956, he made his pro debut in 1977 after a stellar amateur career. We saw Cooney in the UK during his amateur fighting days as he fought in international tournaments that were held in every part of Great Britain – England, Wales and Scotland – winning in each one! In his amateur career, he had managed to get to three finals of the New York Golden Gloves – winning two of them. He entered the professional ranks with a record from the amateurs, as far as I can tell, of 55 wins and 3 losses.

As a fighter, Cooney possessed a huge weapon in his left hand and his signature hook was a dangerous part of his arsenal. His early career showed much by way of promise but there was a careful path being trodden in the early part that kept him away from real tests that may have led to his downfall in his first world title fight.

In 1980 they finally let him go with real contests against real fighters and he managed to stop both Jimmy Young and Ron Lyle to become the WBC ranked number 1 contender. The champion at the time was Larry Holmes.

In 1981, he began the year facing another massive name in former champion Ken Norton. If anything was going to test Cooney’s right to be a contender surely Norton was. In a blitz attack, Cooney scored the quickest knockout in Madison Square Garden history up until then as he took 54 seconds of round one to stop Norton. If people had only started to wake up to Cooney, now they were sitting up and wide awake!

Unfortunately, his promoters were sleeping on the job and still not wanting to risk Cooney against Holmes just yet, apparently. After the win against Norton, Cooney failed to fight for a significant number of months.

In 1982, there came the agreement between Cooney and Holmes, and it became the richest fight in boxing history, up until then. Cooney was due to get riches of which he could only have dreamed when a kid in Long Island.

Then came the racial nonsense of the time with which Cooney never agreed. Don King labeled the Gentleman that was Gerry, The Great White Hope, and wondered out loud if after 23 years of waiting, Caucasian fighters would finally get heavyweight world championship back. The racial spin was blatant, now looks ugly but it was also commercially shrewd. In an interview given to Steve Bunce of the Independent, Cooney was to reflect years later, “I hated that Great White Hope name, I hated all the negative stuff. It was just the two best heavyweights, both unbeaten and in their primes. That was meant to be what it was about.” According to Bunce, the Klan had promised to shoot Holmes if he won and a gang of black nationalists had promised to the do the same to Cooney.

The fight was hyped, the audience was set, and Cooney was ready finally to fight for his destiny. Unfortunately, Cooney was knocked down in round two, had points deducted for low blows and was stopped after his trainer, Victor Valle, intervened by round 13. Cooney was being battered though, had he not been floored, not had 3 points deducted for low blows and been in a 12 round fight, Cooney would have been world champion – but ifs and buts do not make a world champion.

After the fight Cooney and Holmes forged a friendship that transcended the racist rubbish stoked by people who ought to have known better but just saw a big payday.

Another long period of inactivity was to follow though Cooney did do an exhibition 4 rounder before starting to rebuild but Cooney was struggling.

In that interview with Bunce, for the Independent, Cooney was to reflect and explain what was meant by struggling; it was booze that was killing him. He commented, “I was searching for answers – I needed to know what went wrong?” after the fight he more often to be found in bars than in any training camp.

It took until 1987 for him to regain his status as a world title contender and this time he faced not Holmes, but Michael Spinks. However, Cooney was way past his best by this time and in round five he succumbed to Spinks’ superior ability.
He had one last hurrah to come.

His final loss and fight came at the end when he was put in against the sprightly veteran George Foreman. It was now 1990 and he got knocked out in the second round as his opponent, as much of a veteran pugilist as Cooney was, went on to world honors whilst Cooney faced retirement. It was not before Foreman had been rattled, in round one, and Foreman heavily rated Cooney as one of the top three punchers he had ever faced in his career.

Retirement saw Cooney thrive as someone who not only had an opinion to give as a fight analyst, but also a grateful ex boxer as he founded Fighters’ Initiative for Support and Training (FIST) and worked as a promoter for Foreman as well as Roberto Duran and Hector Camacho, SR. He also supports the hands are not for hitting program which tackles domestic abuse. As an epitaph or a legacy, after a career in the square ring, that has not a bad ring to it. On top of all of that he quite the booze and is now 30 years sober. This makes him a World Champion in other ways and someone to whom we are all grateful for his time in that square ring and what came after it.

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