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Larry Holmes vs. Gerry Cooney was a boxing fight that took place on June 11, 1982. It was one of the most highly anticipated fights of the early 1980s. ==Setup== Larry Holmes had been the WBC heavyweight champion since 1978, when he beat Ken Norton by a fifteen round split decision at the Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Over the course of his illustrious career, on the way to almost tying the great Rocky Marcianos record of 49-0, losing in the 49th fight, a controversial decision to the "Jinx" Michael Spinks, fought such fighters as Ossie Ocasio, Mike Weaver, Trevor Berbick. Leon Spinks and, most notably, Muhammad Ali.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=List of Larry Holmes' professional fights )〕 Ali was lured out of a two year retirement with a guarantee of 8 millions dollars to fight Larry Holmes, at this point Muhammad Ali was exhibiting signs of Parkinson Syndrome, a condition he would be later diagnosed with, as his movements were slow and his speech was slurred. Ali also took pills for a thyroid condition he didn't have, which had an adverse effect, further degrading his health. Ali was tested by the Mayo clinic and found unable to touch his finger to his nose, the Nevada State Athletic Commission chose to license Ali which lead to one of boxing most disgraceful moments. Holmes punished Ali for 10 rounds before Herbert Muhammad, Ali's longtime manager instructed to Angelo Dundee, Ali's trainer, to stop the fight. Apart from defending the title against Ali, Holmes also fought Ali to climb out of Ali's shadow, and although he went on to have a legendary career, he struggled finding the public's admiration.. Gerry Cooney, on the other hand, had been a professional fighter since 1977, and he was able to beat boxers such as Jimmy Young and others. The turning point of his career came when he beat Ken Norton, in May 1981, by knockout in round one at the Madison Square Garden in New York.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=List of Gerry Cooney's professional fights )〕 Anticipation over a Holmes-Cooney confrontation began to take shape in early 1981, but the fight took over a year to happen, partly because 1981 in particular was a very busy year for boxing with many other big fights, partly because Holmes was obliged to defend against Berbick, Spinks and Renaldo Snipes in that order. Cooney only had one fight in 1981, against Norton. Holmes-Cooney was originally scheduled for March 1982, but was postponed until June when Cooney injured his back in training. By 1982, promoter Don King and manager Dennis Rappaport began one of the most massive and racially toned campaigns in boxing history to raise public interest for a fight between Holmes and Cooney. After they were both signed to fight, an intense promotional tour followed. Holmes and Cooney attended press conferences at several United States cities, Cooney was shown on the cover of Time magazine, Hollywood stars took an interest in the fight (Sylvester Stallone in particular hung out with Gerry Cooney, others, such as Woody Allen, attended the fight live) and Cooney was cast as "The Great White Hope". There had not been a White world Heavyweight champion in 22 years, and Cooney would try to change that. White supremacist groups had announced they would have "agents" ready to shoot at Holmes the moment he entered the ring, and Black groups retaliated by answering that they would also have armed people on hand in case Holmes was attacked. Because of this, there were police snipers on the roofs of every major hotel surrounding the fight's venue, once again, the Caesars Palace hotel and casino. Snipers were used because the fight was held at the hotel's parking lot; any attacker could have been easily shot by police snipers. The fight was televised live on closed-circuit and pay-per-view television all over the world. A week after the bout, it was re-broadcast on HBO, and later still, on ABC-TV. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Larry Holmes vs. Gerry Cooney」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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