{"id":171723,"date":"2025-10-01T01:42:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T01:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/171723\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T01:42:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T01:42:07","slug":"heavyweight-bert-cooper-faced-foreman-bowe-and-holyfield-but-said-one-man-was-tougher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/171723\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavyweight Bert Cooper Faced Foreman, Bowe And Holyfield But Said One Man Was Tougher"},"content":{"rendered":"

Evander Holyfield, George Foreman and Riddick Bowe<\/a> all played a key role in one of heavyweight boxing\u2019s greatest eras.<\/p>\n

One man who shared the ring with each of the legendary American trio is three-time world title challenger Bert Cooper, who crossed paths with a number of top heavyweights during his professional career.<\/p>\n

Cooper<\/a> faced Foreman in a non-title bout at the Pride Pavilion in Phoenix back in 1989, suffering a 2nd round stoppage defeat to boxing\u2019s oldest ever heavyweight champion.<\/p>\n

He crossed paths with Bowe just over one year later, again suffering a stoppage defeat in the 2nd round of his clash with \u2018Big Daddy\u2019 at the Mirage Hotel in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Cooper \u2013 who passed away in 2019 \u2013 then challenged \u2018The Real Deal\u2019 Holyfield for the unified WBA and IBF heavyweight titles in November of 1991, falling short via seventh round TKO in his attempt at becoming a world champion at The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia.<\/p>\n

In a resurfaced interview<\/a>, Cooper overlooked the three names above to pick Ray Mercer as the toughest fighter that he ever shared a ring with, as he claims he was \u2018proud\u2019 of his efforts against the former WBO heavyweight champion.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think about the Holyfield fight a lot. Also the Michael Moorer fight, the Riddick Bowe fight. The fight I\u2019m most proud of, though, the toughest guy I ever fought, was Ray Mercer I broke his jaw and he cut me real bad. We went to war and then we went to the same hospital! The doctor told me he [Mercer] was in a whole lotta pain in the next room. They stitched us both up, though, and I have lots of respect for Mercer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mercer defeated Cooper via unanimous decision when they locked horns at the Convention Hall in Atlantic City back in August 1990, just one fight prior to his triumph over Francesco Damiani which saw him capture the WBO heavyweight title.<\/p>\n

Former heavyweight champion Mercer \u2013 a 1988 Olympic gold medalist \u2013 built a reputation as one of boxing\u2019s toughest punchers during the 1990s. Known for his durability and power, Mercer fought some of the era\u2019s top names, including Lennox Lewis and Tommy Morrison. He faced Holyfield himself in 1995, losing via unanimous decision.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Evander Holyfield, George Foreman and Riddick Bowe all played a key role in one of heavyweight boxing\u2019s greatest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-171723","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}