Era Misconceptions

[TheGreatA]

Sigh, stop paying attention to fights a guy has after he's over the hill. Anything after the first Holyfield fight is meaningless. And resume isn't everything, CW division simply didn't have much talent. Qawi is clearly above all the guys you mentioned there aside from DeLeon. James Toney was a better CW than damn near all of those guys. I think you're just basing your list on record / time spent in the division.

That's basically what you have to base it on.

Qawi was very good but he did very little at cruiserweight compared to some of the others and I wouldn't rate his head-to-head abilities as a cruiserweight very high either due to his obvious limitations.

Qawi was basically over the hill for all of his cruiserweight career, so in that case it should just be ignored completely.

My real point however was that he should not be considered A-class as a heavyweight by any means.

[Obama]

That's basically what you have to base it on.

Qawi was very good but he did very little at cruiserweight compared to some of the others and I wouldn't rate his head-to-head abilities as a cruiserweight very high either due to his obvious limitations.

Qawi was basically over the hill for all of his cruiserweight career, so in that case it should just be ignored completely.

My real point however was that he should not be considered A-class as a heavyweight by any means.

A = elite
A- = semi-elite

I'm not calling him elite material. But before he was over the hill, semi elite is about right. Consider it B+ if you must. It's still better than B.

[Jim Jeffries]

Uh, anything Cooney did post Holmes is irrelevant. His prime ended there and then. At the TIME however, he was clearly an A- fighter. You're undefeated and destroy 3 B level guys back to back to back, then lose to a top 5 ATG Heavyweight, and somehow you're not even A-? Come now.

So Cooney's prime ended at 27? Young, Lyle and Norton were completely shot by the time they faced Cooney. Who else did he fight to make him A-?

[Obama]

So Cooney's prime ended at 27? Young, Lyle and Norton were completely shot by the time they faced Cooney. Who else did he fight to make him A-?

They were not COMPLETELY shot. And his prime ended because he stopped training after the Holmes fight. He was built as the Great White Hope, and let his people down. He never recovered emotionally.

Norton had just beaten an undefeated Randall Cobb.
Lyle beat Scott LeDoux 1.5 years before, then won 2 of his next 3 (against nobodies I know) OK, Lyle was B- at best.
And Jimmy Young simply was not even over the hill. He simply got robbed a lot. He hadn't really lost a fight since Ernie Shavers knocked him out when he was still green. That was the last time he was KOed prior to Cooney getting the job done. KOing Young was not easy, Foreman couldn't do it and got exposed terribly.

[Kid McCoy]

So Cooney's prime ended at 27? Young, Lyle and Norton were completely shot by the time they faced Cooney. Who else did he fight to make him A-?

Norton and Lyle were well done by the time Cooney faced them, which is probably why he was matched with them. In fact both retired afterwards. Young was a decent win, though. He trained hard for Cooney and was desperate to get a shot at Holmes. He made a decent fist of it too and was very unlucky with the cut.

Cooney's management did right by him, they matched him carefully against some well-known but fading names to build up the hype and got him a superfight and massive payday against Holmes. But that's all. He was never really elite, or even semi-elite.

[Obama]

Yea well no ordinary fighter ever beat Cooney, even after he was past his prime. The guys Cooney did beat, he destroyed. Give the man the benefit of the doubt. If you had to guess, the smart money would be to say he was semi-elite.

[Jim Jeffries]

Norton and Lyle were well done by the time Cooney faced them, which is probably why he was matched with them. In fact both retired afterwards. Young was a decent win, though. He trained hard for Cooney and was desperate to get a shot at Holmes. He made a decent fist of it too and was very unlucky with the cut.

Cooney's management did right by him, they matched him carefully against some well-known but fading names to build up the hype and got him a superfight and massive payday against Holmes. But that's all. He was never really elite, or even semi-elite.

Cosign and out. I won't respond to the guy who says "Cooney let his people down in the Holmes fight."

[Obama]

Cosign and out. I won't respond to the guy who says "Cooney let his people down in the Holmes fight."

You're reading into that too much. Doesn't mean I personally think he did. Nor do I think the racial attitude at the time was right. But it was definitely there. And Cooney definitely never recovered psychologically.

[Silencers]

I think the 70s were the best time for the heavyweights. I mean the division was loaded with talent. Pretty much all the top 15 to 20 ranked heavyweights of the time could have been top contenders/titlists in any era of the division.

I prefer the 90s over the 80s as well.

[LondonRingRules]

The term "golden age of bla bla bla" is thrown around too loosely.

One era misconception I'm aware of, assuming it's a misconception, is that the 70's was the "golden age" of heavyweights. I don't buy it, plain and simple. I don't care how many names you rattle off, videos of the 70s do not impress me and I watch a lot of videos and am very open minded about the past.

The other one I'm aware of is the notion that Ray Robinson's era was the "golden age" of middleweights. Again, I don't care how many names, those videos do not impress me. They're not bad - Ray was in some good fights. But I don't think it was the toughest era.

** It's no misconception that nobody is impressed with you no matter how you rattle on.

Thanks for sparing us the need to name names. POOF, you'll be gone with nary a trace or a thought you ever existed, and a new golden age of kiddies will start............