The former heavyweight contender Gerry Cooney never got a chance to avenge any of his losses. The recently dethroned heavyweight champ Tyson Fury is getting an immediate rematch Saturday to his lone defeat, by Oleksandr Usyk, and Cooney sees a path to victory for his fellow behemoth — with a very big “if”.
“There are a couple of clear adjustments Fury needs to make,” Cooney, these days a media member as the co-host of At the Fights on SiriusXM, told Boxing Scene. “Fury’s a good fighter, and he was having success in the first fight, but he made a big mistake. He was covering up his face with the right hand. Great. The only thing is that Usyk is a southpaw. So the way Fury had his hand up was still leaving his face wide open for Usyk.
“He also has to get into the body. He was doing that in the first fight, but he got away from it. Come on — you can’t miss the body! Pull in, get in tight, bang the body, turn those punches over.
“He has to make those adjustments, and I think he can. And if he makes those corrections, he could beat Usyk.
“But the question is, who shows up? Is it the Fury we know? Or is he finished? Is this just a payday? That’s the whole story, to me.”
Cooney sees this as the kind of fight where we may know within the first couple of rounds which way it’s going to go, because if the 36-year-old Fury isn’t the championship-caliber Fury anymore, it will be immediately apparent.
Overall, Cooney — one of the most gifted heavyweights of the early ‘80s but one who is viewed by many as having failed to deliver on his potential — has mixed feelings about Fury.
“Fury’s a talented guy,” Cooney. “But also, he’s sloppy. I mean, let’s face it, he really doesn’t look like a heavyweight champion. But with all that being said, he’s a good fighter. If he has anything left, he’ll bring it against Usyk. I think he knows this is his last hurrah.”
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, Ringside Seat, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X or LinkedIn, or via email at [email protected].
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