Cooney Has Trouble in Sparring Routines

Gerry Cooney’s left eye was turning an ugly shade of purple. His right cheek sported a row of welts. He looked tired and gaunt, and reporters had to lean forward to hear his hoarse, whispered answers to their questions.

But the really frightening part was that his fight in Atlantic City, N.J., Jan. 15, with former champion George Foreman, 41, being billed as “The Geezers at Caesars,” was still a month off.

All the damage had been inflicted on Cooney, the resurrected, not-so-great “White Hope,” by obscure sparring partners during a week of training at Bob Arum’s Top Rank, Inc., gym.

It seemed fitting that Cooney, in boxing exile since his painful, five-round pratfall against Michael Spinks in June 1987, was playing second banana to Sugar Ray Leonard, who was also using the gym to prepare for his 12-round fight that Leonard won against Roberto Duran.

Seeing Cooney roughed up was mindful of what famous boxing matchmaker Teddy Brenner said after the Spinks debacle.

“I realized that in all those years, they never let Cooney’s sparring partners hit him,” Brenner said. “Spinks didn’t really drop him. Cooney just sort of fell over.”

Now, almost two years later, an international group of boxing writers was wondering if professional boxing’s “Humpty Dumpty” could be propped up again.

Barely holding his head up, Cooney apologized for his listless workout that was cut short by Gil Clancy, who has taken a break from doing ring commentary for CBS to support the Irish heavyweight’s latest comeback.

“That was a rough workout,” Cooney said. “I wasn’t bending and getting any weight behind my punches. I hope I don’t have too many more like this one.”

Clancy, 67, who helped train several former champions, including Emile Griffith, Ken Buchanan and, for a short time, Foreman, looked on the positive side.

“Irishmen mature late, especially fighters. I should know,” said Clancy. “Gerry is only 33. He’s probably just reaching his prime.”

For years, Clancy has been getting call from managers to tutor their promising but unskilled fighters. “I turned down all the offers. I like my job on TV,” he said. “But I met Cooney’s new manager, Tom Mara, at a wedding last July. He asked me if I’d take a look at Gerry in the gym and give him an honest opinion.

“I’d always been kind of intrigued by Gerry. I’d known him since he was winning amateur titles in New York at 17. I always thought he had great potential, but no one had really brought it out. I told Mara I’d make a deal. If I thought Gerry didn’t have anything left, he’d have to quit. If there was something there, I’d train him.”

Clancy saw enough good things to resume his training career after a 13-year layoff.

“Gerry’s attitude is much more positive now,” Clancy said. “Against Spinks, he fought like he was in a fog. He had no instincts, no desire to fight.

“He’d completely turned off boxing. I had to try to put some joy back in his work. Every day in the gym can’t be life and death. In the old days, they wanted him to bust up his sparring partners.

“We don’t need gym wars. There are times Gerry needs to work on just one or two things, like his balance. Every day, we store a little more, like feeding a computer. Things are a lot more relaxed.”

For Cooney, a reluctant dragon pushed into fighting by a domineering father, the biggest battles were always waged in his guilt-ridden mind.

“I come from a dysfunctional family,” he said. “My father was abusive, a real tough egg. He’d put you down to make you fight or survive.

“He almost forced me into boxing. I used to hide in the basement. Outside, I’d be all smiles. Inside I was dying. I thought I was worthless.

“My father always focused on the negative, even when I won all those amateur titles. By being negative, he felt it would make me overcome my weaknesses.

“He never talked about my good points. I’m a much stronger person now, in and out of the ring. It took me until 33 to find my strengths, but I know it will make me a better fighter.”

After losing a gallant, 13-round title fight in 1982 to then-heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, Cooney spent more than a year apologizing to family and friends. Like Floyd Patterson, who donned a disguise to flee Chicago unnoticed after being knocked out by Sonny Liston, he could never accept defeat.

“First, I disappointed my friends, then I disappointed myself,” Cooney said. “I did everything for the wrong reasons. I used to work off the fear of failure. I was so busy trying to make it up to people, I self-destructed.”

He sought solace in alcohol and drugs and admitted he was abusing his body before Spinks again knocked him into retirement.

Cooney puts part of the blame on his former managers, Dennis Rappaport and Mike Jones, christened the “Whacko Twins,” for treating their heavyweight contender as a vaudeville act, surrounding Cooney, at times, with midgets, showgirls and comedians to hype his image and box-office appeal.

“The biggest problem was that I didn’t fight often enough,” Cooney said. “I’d be training 365 days a year, but for close to two years (1984-1986) never actually fighting.”

When the $10 million date with Spinks finally materialized, Cooney’s hulking 6-foot-7, 235-pound frame was little more than an empty shell.

“I wasn’t an everyday addict,” he said. “But I knew I was bringing myself down. I got real scared.”

On fight night with Spinks, Cooney looked scared stiff.

“I felt frozen,” he recalled. “I was standing still, just trying to parry his punches. After the knockdowns, I couldn’t catch my breath.

“A year later, I talked about it with (former lightweight champion) Beau Jack in Florida. He told me it happens to a lot of fighters. You bring your body in the ring and leave your mind in the dressing room. You go blank. You feel lost and alone.”

Cooney no longer feels like a lost soul. He has purged his drinking and drug problems through group therapy, found a manager and trainer who treat him as a fighter, not a freak, and a mindset that he won’t go through the rest of life muttering, “I coulda been a contender.”

“We could talk about yesterday forever,” he said.