The Cooney and Holmes show that divided a nation
Forty years on, two great American boxers recall their Vegas fight that was sold on racial tension
TO THIS day any chat with Larry Holmes inevitably turns to Las Vegas and October 2, 1980, when he administered the most dreadful of the beatings deemed to have inflicted Parkinson’s on Muhammad Ali.
It is a subject to be approached with the utmost tact. ‘So, what are your thoughts after all these years about that night at Caesars Palace?’
The pause is lengthy, the stare searching. Then Holmes, on a tour celebrating the 40th anniversary of his controversial fight with Gerry Cooney, puts hand on heart and says: ‘It still burns inside me, right here. He was my friend. Neither of us wanted that fight.’
Ali had been warned of his first signs of dementia. Holmes, who had once been his sparring partner, had long since succeeded his idol as world heavyweight champion.
Both knew the danger for Ali. But when promoter Don King came calling, the money talked. It was $8million which Ali badly needed and $6million for Holmes, who had no option but to defend his title.
As soon as it became obvious that Ali, for all his defiance, had not a puncher’s chance, Holmes called on the referee to stop it. Come the 10th of 15 rounds, with Ali lolling helplessly on the ropes, his corner signalled the only stoppage of his career.
Holmes wept as his hand was raised. Now he says: ‘We remained friends until he died. Saw each other whenever possible. Spoke when we could. One of the finest men I’ve known.’
Such is often the way after boxers share historic clashes. As it is now with Holmes and Cooney, who met in a fight which pierced America’s racial divide in Vegas on June 11, 1982, and are together now to relive the occasion.
Cooney, the quick- witted entertainer who has turned that valiant defeat into a successful media life. Holmes, the brooding presence which is mostly mischievous but fuelled by resentment that he is not always given the recognition he deserves.
‘It made me very proud,’ says Cooney, ‘ to go 13 rounds before losing to one of the two best heavyweights of all-time.’ Holmes raises his index finger and says: ‘The No 1.’
Holmes actually ranks, by informed assessment, as the third best, behind only Ali and Joe Louis. He had the most potent, perfect jab, a piston of shuddering accuracy which dominated his fights as he set up the KO.
That weapon is so revered that King, still promoting at 90, has asked him to teach it to his WBA regular world heavyweight champion Trevor Bryan ahead of his title defence against London’s Daniel Dubois. By coincidence they meet in Miami on Saturday, the date of the Holmes-Cooney anniversary.
King and his money — $10m for each — were instrumental al in the making of that match, which he marketed with his customary shameless exploitation.
King sold Cooney as ‘The Great White Hope’, stirring the cauldron of America’s racial prejudice. Holmes was subjected to vile insults and death threats by y Americans desperate for r a white man to sit on the e heavyweight throne.
The African-American n community rallied angrily y behind Holmes, all the e more fervently after he e had to move his family y out of their home to protect them until the fight was over.
Holmes and Cooney were pressured to demean each other. Holmes said his challenger would not be getting equal pay if he was not white. Cooney tried to deflect the issue by encouraging members of his team to wear shirts with the slogan: ‘Not The White Man, The Right Man.’
King warned that gunmen in the 32,000 crowd could shoot Holmes on his way to the ring and called for police snipers to be put on rooftops around the arena, built in the car park of Caesars Palace. US President Ronald Reagan ordered a phone line to be installed in Cooney’s dressing room to congratulate him if he won. It remained silent. Holmes recalls how — despite being denied the champion’s right to enter the ring last — he defused the bitterness as they touched gloves. ‘I said to Gerry, “Let’s give ’em a good fight”,’ he recalled.
‘I don’t have a racist bone in my body,’ says Cooney, an Irish-American. ‘I knew Larry didn’t either. It was the right thing to say and we sure gave them a good fight.’
Holmes dropped Cooney with a right in the second round. Cooney came back with his famous left hook in the third, as Holmes remembers: ‘Boom. He hit me so damn hard I felt it in my bones.’
Holmes then took command. Cooney’s last huge effort came in a slugfest 10th at the end of which both nodded in mutual respect. After that he was spent but battled on until floored by a barrage of blows in the 13th. Somehow he staggered to his feet but his trainer stepped in.
Cooney recalls: ‘I always felt I could beat even a boxer as good as Larry by landing my one big punch, but I wasn’t in good enough shape. I had let myself go. I took to drinking more than training. The alcohol ruined the last part of my career.’
But for all that he lost that night, he gained a friend for life. ‘A couple of months after our fight I was thinking Larry and I should have a reunion when he called to say why not meet up. We have been close ever since.’
Gerry is a New Yorker now settled with his family in New Jersey. Holmes lives close to Easton, Pennsylvania, where he grew up, and has turned to business with aplomb. In 2008, Larry Holmes Enterprises employed more than 200 staff in his nightclub, two restaurants, a snack bar, a gym and a slew of slot machines. By 2014 he sold some of them for more than $5m.
‘ What I enjoy most now is teaching young fighters,’ says Holmes. ‘ Making them understand that the jab is the foundation of future world champions.’
So how is that going with Bryan, undefeated in his 22 fights but at 32 not so young? ‘ Not so easy,’ says Holmes. ‘He won his title by mostly going for big shots and doesn’t really want to learn.’
Should Dubois be worried? ‘Trevor’s tough, a solid boxer. But I’m not sure I have time to fix that jab before he fights Dubois.’
That chimes with his opinion of today’s heavyweights, Anthony Joshua, Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury.
‘I don’t believe any of them would have done well against our generation,’ says Holmes. ‘Fury’s the best of them. An amazing athlete for such a big man.
‘Although Usyk proved himself a better boxer than Joshua he’s too small to beat Fury. Some of them are getting so big that I wonder if we shouldn’t have a size limit for the heavyweight division.’
When it comes time to say cheers, Cooney raises a glass of water. ‘I don’t drink any more,’ he says. Not since he hung up the gloves, eight years after Larry met Gerry.
‘I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I knew Larry didn’t either’