<sod>'''Gerry Cooney''' (born August 24, 1956) is an American former [[professional boxer]] who competed from 1977 to 1990. Despite relative inexperience, his exciting wins and size, aided by expert promotion, propelled Cooney into a lucrative bout with world [[heavyweight]] champion [[Larry Holmes]] in 1982. Cooney performed credibly before his [[corner retirement|corner retired him]] in round 13, and was regarded as having made a brave and determined effort. A view of him as tactically naive in defense was reinforced when former [[light heavyweight]] champion [[Michael Spinks]] [[technical knockout|stopped]] Cooney in five rounds in 1987. In his final bout, he demonstrated his exceptionally hard punching power by staggering the powerful [[George Foreman]], but was unable to capitalize on it; again showing himself deficient at basic self-protection, Cooney suffered a devastating second-round [[knockout]] that ended his career.<eod>
<sod>'''Gerry Cooney''' (born August 24, 1956) is an American former [[professional boxer]] who competed from 1977 to 1990. Despite relative inexperience (and a glass jaw in many's opinion), his exciting wins and size, aided by expert promotion, propelled Cooney into a lucrative bout with world [[heavyweight]] champion [[Larry Holmes]] in 1982. Cooney performed credibly before his [[corner retirement|corner retired him]] in round 13, and was regarded as having made a brave and determined effort. A view of him as tactically naive in defense was reinforced when former [[light heavyweight]] champion [[Michael Spinks]] [[technical knockout|stopped]] Cooney in five rounds in 1987. In his final bout, he demonstrated his exceptionally hard punching power by staggering the powerful [[George Foreman]], but was unable to capitalize on it; again showing himself deficient at basic self-protection, Cooney suffered a devastating second-round [[knockout]] that ended his career.<eod>