Cooney Is Back Again, If Only for a Minute, Stopping Gregg at 1:26

The swiftness and completeness of destruction was awesome, although few expected anything less from Gerry Cooney when finally within the ropes. His one-round knockout of Eddie Gregg, the ninth such in Cooney’s strange career, is a kind of ring form: Dispatch ancient opponents with the left hand. That’s what he does.

But how can boxing be assured that Cooney is back, even with the spectacular pitch-poling of Gregg (either 32 or 34) Saturday in the Cow Palace? The left uppercut that seemed to lift Gregg head over heels surely announced the end of the fight--at 1:26 of the round--but less surely signaled the resumption of a career. Cooney’s first fight in 18 months, only his fifth in five years--just as often as he comes back, he goes away.

Nevertheless, his latest comeback, which contained all the violence possible within the law, is certain to stir the heavyweight division, which has languished in chaos as champions come and go. It was four years ago that any heavyweight boxer brought marquee status to the game. And that boxer, come to think of it, was a big hitter named Gerry Cooney.

Then-champion Larry Holmes brought the ballooning hype of Cooney, who had never fought a ranked fighter, back to earth when he took him to the canvas, and Cooney was thereafter a subject of ridicule as he reeled off excuse after excuse and comeback after comeback. In his inactivity and blighted promise, he became a joke. Rich in money ($10 million from the Holmes fight) and privilege (esteemed up to then for a career of dubious stiffs), he was mostly reviled in his early retirement.

So, now he’s back? “Yeah, I’m back,” he assures. “And very confident about getting to the top.”

In fact, in the game’s lust for a white heavyweight who can punch, he is back, and on his way to the top. All that would keep him out of an immediate title fight with any one of the three champions would be negotiations over the purses. All that could delay such a fight further would be a rematch with the recently retired Holmes.

Representatives of both Cooney and Holmes, on hand for the Gregg fight, coyly conceded the attraction. “It would be nice way to go out,” said Richie Giachetti of the Holmes camp. “Bang him out. He’d like that.”

As for the Cooney camp, well, they’ve been after Holmes for years, their single-minded obsession a kind of joke in itself. Manager Dennis Rappaport says they offered Holmes $15 million a year ago for a rematch.

At 29, Cooney can hardly afford to defer his greatness, if he has any. Patience over his career has been worn thin, perhaps too thin. People in boxing have long since given up on him, and now it appears that perhaps his fans have, too. Although nobody expected a sellout, with the fight being broadcast live locally, there was some surprise at the scant turnout of only 1,538. So maybe his considerable appeal has eroded.

His power appears intact, though. Despite Cooney’s reluctance to get into a ring--he has forced 13 postponements or cancellations of bouts in his career--he has always been awesome within, although his careful choice of opponents has almost always been restricted to older men. And his vaunted left hook, which carried him to 23 previous knockouts in his 28 fights, is still with him.

He stunned Gregg, the No. 3 heavyweight in the World Boxing Assn., with that hook within 18 seconds of the fight. Gregg, who got $50,000 to Cooney’s $300,000, decided he would earn his money by staying in front of Cooney, boring in. Cooney, 232 pounds, simply pounded away with short punches. Finally, he caught Gregg, 222, with a left uppercut and stiffened him. Gregg was on his way down, but Cooney came in with another left hook, all in the aid of gravity.

Gregg kneeled on one shaky knee before getting up at the count of six. Referee Rudy Ortega looked into Gregg’s eyes, the pupils dilated like dinner plates, counted to eight and called it off.

Gregg hardly complained about the stoppage. After all, he’d been hit hard. “As you can see, I went to the canvas,” he said. “That speaks for itself. I don’t go to the canvas too often.”

Cooney, whose litany of injuries and family problems constitute what he calls “bad luck,” admits he has been criticized. “Some people question my desire,” he says. “But I’ve always had it in my heart to fight.”

As he hardly ever fights, the quote seems presumptuous, just as when he continually likens himself to a gladiator. Although he is in a category of big men who can punch, he is not in the category of big men who are there to do it often enough. So the comeback, as sensational as it was Saturday, will have to be judged in the context of his next fight. If there is one.