Holmes vs Cooney, you score the fight!!!

[The Old LefHook]

I wouldn't bother to score this fight. All Cooney managed to do was keep it semi-competitive. Ridiculously close scores in boxing are common. The only thing provable by these scores is that the judges were on acid.

[QueensburyRules]

--- Not sure of the point you're making Ray.

Liston barely accumulated enough ring minutes in those 3 previous bouts to total a single rd. he was also living the high life of Vegas and Miami, and widely suspected of being several years older, like closer to 40 than 34.

Moreover, Clay was a patsy, easy meat and he trained on whiskey. Cooney much younger and prob better trained, but also rusty over those few years for inactivity prob born of injuries. He was always a bit fragile.

Anyway, scored the fight on my wordpress and will copy tomorrow, so grab up the family jewels lest they get dropped on the sidewalk and busted!

[QueensburyRules]

--- Because of the racist Great White Hope promotional overtones of DKing, the FBI had snipers stationed on every surrounding rooftop in case of gunplay between black and white nationalists bolstered by maybe triple or quadruple security. I certainly wouldn't want to be within miles of the place under those circumstances. Never a good thing for a fighter to be backed by the KKK, so Cooney had a lot of strikes against him before ever entering the ring, not the least of which was over two years of virtual inactivity as others have noted in a still budding career.

Cooney jogs and walks in to huge cheers, obviously the crowd favorite Let's face it, Lar was a surly, insecure, junk yard dog of a cus by his demeanor of having to follow after the popular Ali and never caught on with the public until Tyson crucified him.*An in shape, ready to rumble Jesse Jackson in the middle of the team leading as Lar jogs behind him to mixed cheers and boos.*

Merchant intones the fight is racial, not racist and uses the then shiny Gold SRLeonard as his fulcrum to that point. Youngish Mills the ref looking teensy, but hey ho, years later he thumped Bernard Popkins out of the ring to bust his ankle and make him bawl like a girl.

Note: I score fights using modern scoring of the highly belabored 10 point must system of padded out nonsensical points making fights look like basketball scores instead of the single point round by round deductions they are. Since every other big fight is disputed results because of the lack of transparency and integrity of boxing, I add my own modification of scoring really close rounds EVEN. I find in most all disputed fight scoring, the disputed winner is usually the hometown/money fighter winning by the even rounds I score. That explains the perception that the other fighter actually won because he won most of the "big" obvious rounds whereas the actual winner won all the dinky "even" rounds.

RD1- 10-10/ Spar to start. Lar busy with nonthreatening jab as Cooney feints and stalks. A booming right knocks Lar into the ropes, the first KD under modern rules, but I'm not scoring nominal KDs into the ropes because modern refs are so subjective about it. Cooney some thudding Ls to the body as Holmes sharpens his jab, a typical feeling out round on the way to a great fight we hope.

RD2- 10-8 for Lar/ Lar dance and jab/ Cooney LHK to body and some 1-2s with booming L/ Lar still busy with jab, but flashing R KDs Cooney in a sorta of Ali's KD of the spiraling Foreman in Zaire. Cooney up but soon reeling into ropes as the round ends.

Note: they didn't score 10-8 automatic KD rds back in the day. This my addition to better understand outcomes of classic fights since knockdowns have always influenced judging that might include bleed over to subsequent rounds.

RD3- 10-9 for Cooney/ Cooney busy with Ls as Lar jabs in reverse/ Cooney pics more clean shots

RD4- 10-9 Cooney/ Lar still in reverse as Cooney pics/ Lar L/ big Cooney LHK to body then jabs with combo at bell

RD5-10-9 Cooney/ Lar flicker jab in reverse as Cooney drives him further back and busy with R to body/ Exchange with Cooney L to body as Lar dance and jab

RD6- 10-9 Lar/ Lar still on move jabbing/ Big Cooney R and jabs well to move Lar in reverse jabbing/ Tomkins says both are hurt and I agree/ Exchange and now Cooney really hurt but bell sounds

RD7- 10-9 Cooney/ Lar jab/ Cooney combos/ Lar still in reverse/ Cooney cut on L eye but goes to town on Lar

RD8- 10-9 Cooney/ Exchange jabs/ Cooney LHK body as Lar in reverse/ Cooney L body and then combo/ Lar combo/ Cooney Rs and then Lar attack causes Cooney to spit his gumshield to breathe better/ Exchange ends with Lar in reverse

RD9- 10-9 Cooney/ Cooney stalks Lar who jabs in reverse/ Cooney L body/ Lar R/ Cooney combo then R/L to body/ Lar R and Cooney Combo/ Cooney deliberate low Luppercut and time called. I found out later Mills may have deducted a point, possibly two but it wasn't obvious and none of the announcers mentioned it in the moment/ I end up deducting those missed low blows at the end of the fight. At least one replay shows Lar pulling Cooney's head down which might explain at least one of the final tally of 3 low blow deductions. Lots of legal beltline shots by both, but Cooney with about 4-1 advantage in body shots, so likely a couple more just below the belt.

Rd10- 10-9 Cooney/ Lar jab and 1-2/ Cooney L at beltline then R/ Who ever said Cooney was one handed? They lied big time/ Now Lar hurt and tired as Cooney pics/ Big Exchange and Lar in reverse.

RD11- 9-9 Even/ Cooney deducted for low blow, the only obvious deduction by Mills/ Lar in reverse recovery as Cooney drives him back/ Lar R/ Ref warn Cooney for low blow/deduct another? Hard to tell/ Both pic at each other to finish

Rd12- 10-10 Even/ Lar dance and attack/ Cooney L/ Both pic/ Lar busy/ Cooney L and then body combo

RD13- Valle says rough Lar up before rd starts/ Temperature has dropped from 100F to 89F, yet surprisingly Cooney has remained fresh well past where he has ever been before. Exchange/ Cooney L knock Lar off and then body combo/ Lar R and then more Rs and opens up on Cooney who exchanges, but falls sagging into ropes as Mills stops fight to mixed cheers. Both give kudos to the other

My score by rds with only one point deduction is Cooney 7-Lar 2 with Even 3. That translates to 116-112 for Cooney at the stoppage. Now if I deduct the two low blows I missed, it's 114-112 for Cooney. Now, if I give Holmes my 2 hometown even rounds, remember, one of my even rounds was already Cooney point deduction that he otherwise would have won, so it gets a little complicated here because the obscurity of the low blow calls forces me to add and subtract after the fact not knowing the rounds those two low blows occurred, but I believe my math sound, it's 112 Cooney-114 Holmes, the same point margin as the two 111-113 official cards for Holmes.

Viola! I'll take no stick whatsoever for my scoring methodology and my observation that Holmes needed those legitimate low blow deductions to win the fight. In that regard, I think the Low Blows were instructions to Cooney by Valle in what was turning into the toughest fight Cooney ever fought. Ol' George finished him off post haste as a point of comparison...just rubbin' it Lar, just rubbin' it in for some good sport!!

C'est la vie d'un boxeur...

[HOUDINI563]

The Queen again proves his lack of understanding of the sport is monumental.

[QueensburyRules]

--- Who did Houdini in? Mighty strange that!

[Ben Bolt]

At the time, I was 100% behind Holmes, wanted him to win.

Though, watching HBO’s “Legendary Nights, Holmes vs Cooney” (on YouTube), you just can’t feel anything but sympathy with the person Cooney.

The last thing I read about him, quite recently, was he saying he had began to suffer of memory loss.
Maybe he was a too nice guy to be able to reach it to the very top.

[HOUDINI563]

Luckily the vast majority did not score this fight as close. Most scored the bout decisively in Holmes favor. Larry, down the stretch, dominated this bout.

[clemenza]

Cooney was also inactive for 13 months because Don had control of any Heavyweight with a heartbeat and Gerry could not get a fight, and that was obvious in how Cooney was out of gas after 10-11 rounds, and he previous fight was a one round destruction of Ken Norton. Larry Holmes has said on many occasions that a year or so later Gerry would’ve beaten him , he was just not ready for that big fight. Holmes also said that Cooney hit him so hard with a left hook to the body early in the fight that Larry thought he **** his trunks, lol. A good fight and 2 very good guys, who became very close friends and help each other’s charities immensely. And that’s that

[HOUDINI563]

I lived in NY during those times. Cooney was the most protected of all hwt contenders in my lifetime. His management was focused on getting themselves a multimillion $ title shot. The inactivity you mention had allot to do with his management ensuring that title shot.

[QueensburyRules]

--- Had cooney continued blowouts of the Morton's and Youngs, Lar was already ducking the WBA boys and would've ducked Cooney too.

Instead Cooney played his chips brilliantly and retired set for life. It was a great fight sadly tinged unnecessarily by racial animosity that still contaminates political dialogue to this day.