Greatest White Heavyweight of All

[Guest]

You are right. Cooney didn't have Carnera's muscle. Note the oversized head and chin though, even for a man that size. Almost like what you'd see on a carnie freak, which, coincidentally enough, was Carnera's other job in real life. It made for quite a target for real fighters back then, just like Cooney's oversized head and jaw made for quite a target during the color tv era.

Have you ever seen pics of Primo Carnera? I'm telling you: Cooney = Carnera.

Then Cooney must have been apowerfully built man.Primo had a very impressive physique for a man of his his height. Lifting weightswas not yet popular and roids didn't exist.

 

[Triad]

Note the oversized head and chin though, even for a man that size. Almost like what you'd see on a carnie freak,

His chin may be prognathic but his head is about right for someone 6'7" and 270 pounds. His career record was 87-15 with 70 KO's (another source says 87-14 with 69 KO's). His carnival job was as a wrestler usually against two men not necesarily in the freak show.

 

[JD074]

Be careful you're not just sticking up for Cooney simply because he was white.

What's wrong with that? If black sports fans can stick up for black athletes simply because they're black, why can't we do the same? Would you go to a discussion board about black athletes and give them the same advice? This is a site about white athletes and we can celebrate them in whatever fashion we want to.

 

[pt.guard2]

Have to wonder how Cooney would have turned out if he had signed with D'Amato instead of "the wacko twins" (which is what his promoters, Mike Jones and Dennis Rappaport were referred to as...)who severely mis-managed him and just went for the easy money.....

 

[white is right]

If he didn't sign with the whacko twins he probably would have won a world title. The WBA belt was passed around like a joint a Grateful dead concert. At some point one of the mediocre WBA champions would have been put to sleep by Cooney. He might have made even more money and beaten a slipping Holmes who aged rapidly after the Cooney fight.

 

[Guest]

Come on, man. Gimme a fighter, not a tomato can.


You know darn well, if you went around to 99.8% of the people on this board, and said, "Dino Dennis," they'd say, "Dino who??"


You prove my point. Cooney never decked any real fighter with a single head shot in his whole career. Some "power," all right. Yeah, he's got power, because the media says so, so I guess I better go along with it.


I ask for fighters, you throw palookas at me.

Cooney knocked out Dino Dennis with one punch. Dennis was known for his chin and went the distance with George Foreman.

Edited by: Frank Rizzo

 

[Guest]

Umm, perhaps we don't have any "evidence" that Cooney's fighters were fixed, because we are not 70 years removed from the crime, like we are with Carnera?


Geez, even our own corrupt gov't knew enough to seal the JFK documents for another 50 years.


Truth takes time, but it always surfaces.

Don't buy the comparison between Carnera and Cooney.

Carnera was controlled by organized crime and there is evidence to suggest that many of his fights were fixed.

Although Cooney's handlers may have protected him from taking on the tough fights he needed to fight and over matched him against Holmes so they could cash in on the big money, there is no evidence that Cooney fought any fixed fights.

 

[Bart]

You prove my point. Cooney never decked any real fighter with a single head shot in his whole career. Some "power," all right. Yeah, he's got power, because the media says so, so I guess I better go along with it.

Why are you fixated on this one head shot thing. I remember watching Foreman destroy Frazier, knocking him around the ring like a rag doll. I never heard anyone say," Big deal, you call that power, he didn't KO Joe with only one punch." Many heavy hitters hurt their opponents, wearing them down with powerful body blows, then finish them off with combinations. Besides, most fighters who are decked with one punch , let's say in the eighth round, have already been weakened having taken several shots throughout the course of the match.


Edited by: Bart

 

[Kaptain]

Good points Bart. Frank, Larry Holmes himself said that Cooney hit harder than Mike Tyson. Bring something new to this discussion or just drop it.

 

[Guest]

Look, I don't know if you noticed or not, but if you touched Tommy Gunn Morrison on the chin with a feather, his eyes would roll up in the back of his head, and the next thing you know, you better be reaching for the smelling salts.


It's got nothing to do with black/white. As a matter of fact, that is one area where white guys have for sure been shown to be comparable to black guys--the ability to take a punch. I mean, yeah, white guys' skin gets cut easier. Maybe that's got something to do with gloves, as opposed to bare-knuckling it. I don't know.


But what I DO know is, there seems to be just as many glass-jawed black guys as white guys. Remember Clifford Etienne, Donald Curry, and Mark Breland? Hell, even Tommy Hearns, for that matter. All black guys with glass jaws.


Conversely, you could name some white guys with granite chins, like Tex Cobb (who was drunk in his last fight, otherwise he would never have been knocked off his feet his entire career), Chuck Wepner, etc, etc.


So quit your inferiority-complexing on me. Chill, bro. Glass jaws go both ways, black, white, yellow, whatever.


But if you can't admit that Tommy Morrison had a weak chin, then you have a serious bigtime problem calling a spade a spade, bro.

Yeah, I agree that calling Morrison glass jawed is an exaggeration Edited by: Frank Rizzo

 

[Gary]

So pignuts is back and this time he is Frank Rizzo ex-mayor of Philadelphia and the toughest cop around,to bad Frank died in 1991,so from now on I'll call myself Sugar Ray Charles Jr.
Cooney was a good fighter with wins over Lyle,Young and Norton[who really had a glass jaw

].Morrison took punches from George Foreman and Razor Ruddock and beat them both.Tommy wants to make a comeback and is currently calling out Mike Tyson[remember him?He quit against Kevin McBride

]Now when Tyson gets done cleaing up his pigeon crap from around his house maybe he will find some guts and fight Morrison!It really don't matter since the Heavyweight Divison belongs to our White Brothers from Eastern Europe

!!!Edited by: Gary

 

[jaxvid]

Rizzo, I don't think you are a white hater and I agree with some of your postings. I don't want you to get driven away because of the flak you're getting for some of your views. I think your point of view is common among many white fans and I'd like to see that addressed as it is something castefootballers have to deal with everday.

I don't get the Cooney-hate thing. Of all the white boxers that have come along he seems the least deserving of the criticizm. What did the guy do, sleep with your sister or something?

Gerry Cooney was a source of racial pride for me back in the 1980's when there was no decent white fighters around. I was too young for Quarry and geez Tex Cobb, as much as I like the guy was just a punching bag. But Cooney was cool. He was a young, good looking guy that beat some decent fighters and got a shot (too early) at the belt.

Here's a story. When Cooney was going to fight Holmes I was living in rural Alabama at a military base. It was out in the boonies. Waaaay out in the boonies. There wasn't a town of 20,000 people for 500 miles. Anyway someone in one of the local bergs books the Cooney-Holmes fight on pay per view at a local auditorium on a projector screen. This was before cable (I think, I know I didn't have it) so seeing a major prize fight live was a big deal. Free TV boxing matches were a thing of the past.

So me and some buddies get tickets, it was outrageously expensive, twenty bucks or something like that. Just think how much beer you could buy then with $20! At the fight the auditorium is divided into two groups: white and black. The fight starts and it basically becomes a racial battle. Every punch by every fighter is a blow for black or white. Arguments and bets and scuffles break out, but basically everyone watched the fight and the expected race riot did not happen. We really got jacked up for Cooney that night.

He lost of course. But it was a good fight. The odds were against him, he was young, and gave nearly as good as he got. I thought the fight should have went on, he didn't seem that bad that he had to quit. A couple of times it looked like he might have put Holmes away. Anyway we were all bummed that he lost but looked forward to better things.

His was the best effort I had seen a white fighter give in the heavyweight class in my lifetime. Holmes was the proto-Negro fighter, big, muscular, frankly an animal looking guy. Cooney was a regular looking white guy. Decent size, in good shape, same ethnic background as myself.

Bottom line was Cooney was a hero to a group of disafected white guys of that era. He did himself and us proud. I do not remember any of the black guys after the fight saying that Cooney was a bum and got his ass kicked. For the 1980's that was something.

Yeah Cooney disappeared. Maybe it was fixed, didn't look like it though, unless the fix was to end the fight for Holmes. So I cannot for the life of me understand your animosity for the guy. Nowadays with the white Russian invasion making heavyweight fights a pleasure to watch it is easy to look back and criticize the "dark ages". But expect to get some grief for it. You'll deserve it.

 

[Bart]

Gil Clancey interview withZ. Levin touches briefly on Cooney.


ZL: What was it like being at the center of it all? You had to have major butterflies?
GC: No. ...I never ever got that way. I don't know why? (laughing)
ZL: Does it take a certain kind of fighter to handle that kind of pressure?
GC: Oh, definitely. Some guys just can't take anything. Like Gerry (Cooney) when he got stopped by Foreman, he was like hypnotized going into the ring. No business being in there.
ZL: And Cooney didn't take your advice to keep boxing and movingâ€â€￾
GC: (cutting in) Yeah, just wanted him to keep moving around. And he didn't do it. We had been working for a month, getting him to use his right hand, because he was twice as effective when he did it. The whole God darn first round, he didn't throw a right hand. But he did hurt George with a left hook in that fight. He had something wrong with him...I can't even think of the word now? It's a common thing. I just can't think of the name now. You know what I'm talking about? In an earlier fight, when I didn't have himâ€â€￾you know, he used to kill his sparring partnersâ€â€￾so like a week before the fight he went out to Vegas, and I happened to be there: sparring partners were killing him. Guys that he was banging around everyday were banging him around. What the hell is it? ANXIETY ATTACKS!
ZL: Oh, he did?
GC: That's what he used to get, anxiety attacks. Even when I trained him. When I trained him, about one out of every six or seven days, he'd go into the ring...and a complete different person. Anxiety attack. And that's what happened to him, I think, with Foreman. Cause after the first round, he come out in the second round, George couldn't miss him!
ZL: And had he been taken along the right way, maybe these anxiety attacks wouldn't have happened?
GC: Oh, if he had had other opponents at first, a few more fights under his belt, I don't think Larry Holmes or anybody would have been a problem for him.

 

[white is right]

Rizzo, I don't think you are a white hater and I agree with some of your postings. I don't want you to get driven away because of the flak you're getting for some of your views. I think your point of view is common among many white fans and I'd like to see that addressed as it is something castefootballers have to deal with everday.

I don't get the Cooney-hate thing. Of all the white boxers that have come along he seems the least deserving of the criticizm. What did the guy do, sleep with your sister or something?

Gerry Cooney was a source of racial pride for me back in the 1980's when there was no decent white fighters around. I was too young for Quarry and geez Tex Cobb, as much as I like the guy was just a punching bag. But Cooney was cool. He was a young, good looking guy that beat some decent fighters and got a shot (too early) at the belt.

Here's a story. When Cooney was going to fight Holmes I was living in rural Alabama at a military base. It was out in the boonies. Waaaay out in the boonies. There wasn't a town of 20,000 people for 500 miles. Anyway someone in one of the local bergs books the Cooney-Holmes fight on pay per view at a local auditorium on a projector screen. This was before cable (I think, I know I didn't have it) so seeing a major prize fight live was a big deal. Free TV boxing matches were a thing of the past.

So me and some buddies get tickets, it was outrageously expensive, twenty bucks or something like that. Just think how much beer you could buy then with $20! At the fight the auditorium is divided into two groups: white and black. The fight starts and it basically becomes a racial battle. Every punch by every fighter is a blow for black or white. Arguments and bets and scuffles break out, but basically everyone watched the fight and the expected race riot did not happen. We really got jacked up for Cooney that night.

He lost of course. But it was a good fight. The odds were against him, he was young, and gave nearly as good as he got. I thought the fight should have went on, he didn't seem that bad that he had to quit. A couple of times it looked like he might have put Holmes away. Anyway we were all bummed that he lost but looked forward to better things.

His was the best effort I had seen a white fighter give in the heavyweight class in my lifetime. Holmes was the proto-Negro fighter, big, muscular, frankly an animal looking guy. Cooney was a regular looking white guy. Decent size, in good shape, same ethnic background as myself.

Bottom line was Cooney was a hero to a group of disafected white guys of that era. He did himself and us proud. I do not remember any of the black guys after the fight saying that Cooney was a bum and got his ass kicked. For the 1980's that was something.

Yeah Cooney disappeared. Maybe it was fixed, didn't look like it though, unless the fix was to end the fight for Holmes. So I cannot for the life of me understand your animosity for the guy. Nowadays with the white Russian invasion making heavyweight fights a pleasure to watch it is easy to look back and criticize the "dark ages". But expect to get some grief for it. You'll deserve it.

There was no fix in the fight, Holmes was better. The boxing world wanted Cooney to win he was a money making machine. He was too green for Holmes and probably didn't fight his fight. He sat back and tried to out box the boxer, He needed to gamble more and attack Holmes. I have a copy of this fight and I still can't believe Holmes survived some of Cooney's vicious rib shots. At one point in the 5th round Holmes sagged in half from a body shot and it looked like it was a matter of time before Cooney finished him.

 

[Bart]

I have a copy of this fight and I still can't believe Holmes survived some of Cooney's vicious rib shots. At one point in the 5th round Holmes sagged in half from a body shot and it looked like it was a matter of time before Cooney finished him.

All of that was faked!! Just ask Frank.

 

[pt.guard2]

Rizzo, what is wrong with rooting for someone because you have something in common with him? Boxing, more so than any other sport is divided along ethnic/racial lines. When the sport was dominated by Irish, Italian and Jewish fighters, large groups of fans would come to the fight to support their fighter. The same applies to Black and Hispanic fighters today.

I too remember the Cooney/Holmes fight. As an pre-teen Irish American kid living in a racially mixed urban neighborhood, there was definitely a source of pride that Cooney had a shot at the ultimate title in boxing and the rooting was definitely divided along racial and ethnic lines. Holmes was the better man that night, but Cooney did better than history gives him credit for. I know of no incidents of race riots that were reported after the fight and most black and white fans agreed that it was a tough close fight and Cooney fought well.




Edited by: pt.guard2

 

[jcolec02]

LAY OFF RIZZO!!! he is making good points...dont cheer for sorry ass fighters just cuz there white...i LOVE the Klitschko's and Ricky Hatton and Joe Cazaghe, and all the other GREAT white fighters but cmon...dont cheer for white fighters like tommy morrision...i mean he had alot of talent and had the flash and the look and all that but he did have a suspect chin...so lay off of rizzo cuz he does make a good point....

 

[White Shogun]

LAY OFF RIZZO!!! he is making good points...dont cheer for sorry ass fighters just cuz there white...i LOVE the Klitschko's and Ricky Hatton and Joe Cazaghe, and all the other GREAT white fighters but cmon...dont cheer for white fighters like tommy morrision...i mean he had alot of talent and had the flash and the look and all that but he did have a suspect chin...so lay off of rizzo cuz he does make a good point....

I have had to come back and edit this post, as I was originally very upset. Everything I typed was in caps and I included a few too many swear words.

Let me say it like this: No one here needs to lay off Rizzo. This is a site that celebrates white athletes. Tommy Morrison is a white athlete, and one that many of us rooted for back in the day when there were no white men in boxing's heavyweight division.

To say Tommy Morrison had a glass jaw is disingenuous at best and seems to me nothing more than a repeat of the media's present day portrayal of him. Morrison fought many hard fights, and was KO'd by hard hitting heavyweights. The man had his jaw broken in a fight, and went on to win that fight by KO. That is not the type of thing that a man with a glass jaw can do.

We can agree to disagree, and many of us do. But I don't think its fair to tell anyone here that they cannot support a white athlete, any white athlete, for whatever reasons they choose. This is one of the only places possible for us to do so. And especially a man like Tommy Morrison, who beat some great black heavyweights in his day. The guy doesn't deserve to be disrespected, any more than Cooney or the Klitschkos, or tonight's white hero, Oleg Maskaev. Edited by: White Shogun

 

[Don Wassall]

I rooted really hard for Tommy Morrison because he was one the very fewtalented white heavyweights during that long dry spell when there were no serious contenders to whathad becomea black monopoly that was well on the way to becoming one in perpetuity much like tailback and cornerback in the NFL, and becauseMorrison was the nephew of John Wayne, a great American actor and a tremendously patriotic man and excellent role model for American boys and men.

 

[white is right]

Morrison between the ropes was a hero, outside the ring he was nearly as FUBAR as Mike Tyson. I just wouldn't go as far to lump him with pond scum like Tyson and Joel Scott(top prospect that raped twice and killed once), because most of Morrison's misdeeds were done to himself. Funny but now that the pressure is off Mike Tyson he seems to be a bit of an ambassador to the game. He hosted the weigh in and no incidents occured, infact he was joking with both fighters. Maybe it was roids that made him the wingnut that he was in the 80's and 90's........

 

[White_Savage]

To say Tommy Morrison had a glass jaw is disingenuous at best and seems to me nothing more than a repeat of the media's present day portrayal of him. Morrison fought many hard fights, and was KO'd by hard hitting heavyweights. The man had his jaw broken in a fight, and went on to win that fight by KO. That is not the type of thing that a man with a glass jaw can do.
.

Especially considering that Ali is worshiped as an Iron Man for getting up off the floor with a broken jaw against Frazier. Double standard there Rizzo?

 

[jcolec02]

i understand that you guys liked morrison...but to speak of him as an equal to the klitschko's or marciano or dempsey would be rediculous...i know that you didnt exactly say that...but my thing is if white athletes are to be taken seriously...we cant just jump on any white guys bandwagon...i think they need to be worthy of our recognition first...to finish my post...Brady Quinn, Vitali Klitschko, and Brian Urlacher are my top 3 favorite athletes so i dont wanna hear any pugnus bullsh*t...

 

[jcolec02]

also...i liked tommy morrison...and maybe he didnt have a GLASS jaw...but i think his jaw was as weak as someone like lennox lewis...who had an incredibly overrated jaw...(even though he was knocked out 2 times) I liked tommy...but compared to a guy like Vitali or Rocky...well...he didnt measure up to me and neither did cooney

 

[Gary]

Nobody here said Morrison or Cooney were as good as Dempsey or Marciano.If you don't want to be compared with pignuts don't make your posts sound like him.All the White Brothers are having a great day-your invited to have it with us and celebrate Maskaev's win.We are very PRO WHITE HERE!!!

 

[White_Savage]

Jcole: It's the double standard I don't like. Tommy Morrison WAS a good fighter. You don't get where he is without being one. The chin thing gets to me especially, really, it goes beyond race. I get so tired of boxing fans saying that X fighter, Black or White, has a weak chin when they get floored by shots that would stop rhinos.

With Morrison, it's a double-edged sword. If he hadn't been White, he would be remembered as a tough contender who didn't quite have what it took mentally to be champion. Because he's White though, he's remembered as a joke. Funny you bring up Klitscko, since he is a perfect example. No matter how much the E. European HWs win, the double-standard media only takes it as evidence of how "sick" the HW division is. Marciano is a boxing god of the old days, and thus is still widely respected, but then again there are huge numbers of revisionist fans who don't think he's so great. Basically, I don't know what a modern White fighter can do to be considered an all-time great these days. No matter what they achieve, the Kellermans and Atlases of the world will still be sitting there saying "but Tyson could have beaten them ALL"