Holmes/Cooney, Reagan and Slugged at the Disneyland Hotel

[Strangler Lewis]

Twenty-five years ago Larry Holmes successfully defended his heavyweight title by knocking out Gerry Cooney.

For those of you too young to remember, the heavyweight division wasn't always dominated by white former Soviets. In 1982, there had not been a white American heavyweight champion since Rocky Marciano. Cooney had been hailed as a legitimate great white hope because he had knocked out a bunch of aging black fighters whose best days were behind them.

Cooney got most of the publicity as white America rooted for him to win. One detail that I read today that I was not aware of at the time was that there was a phone set up in Cooney's locker room to allow him to receive a call from President Reagan "when" he won. There was no phone in Holmes's locker room.

I was a big fight fan at the time. The biggest perk of my brief tenure as a stagehand at the Oakland Auditorium was that I got to see the 1981 Leonard/Hearns fight for free on big screen closed circuit TV. In June 1982, I was in southern California and the Holmes/Cooney fight was being shown at the Disneyland Hotel. I went down there, passed for 21, bought my ticket and went in.

Rooting as I was for Holmes, I was in the minority. When Cooney's corner threw in the towel, I stood up and cheered while others booed. I glanced over to my right and saw a fellow two seats over squared up and looking at me. I guess I misread his demeanor. I thought he was signalling, "Isn't it great to be fight fans, and wasn't this a wonderful event?" I briefly squared up back at him, smiled, and went back to cheering for Holmes. The next thing I knew, I got socked in the jaw, which I didn't appreciate but wasn't particularly anxious to pursue as I was in my pass-for-21-sportcoat.

Fortunately, the guy took off quickly. His friend walked with me out of the hall apologizing profusely. He assured me that the guy who hit me was a Christian and that this was totally out of character.