“Four Kings” Dream Fights: Thomas Hearns Vs Floyd Mayweather, JR. – Fight 2

By Roy “Sharpshooter” Bennett

An ex girlfriend wondering out loud once asked me why boxing fans are so obsessed with mythical match ups between boxers from different eras? To add insult to injury she then made the point that basketball fans didn’t argue about whether the 1950 Minneapolis Lakers could have beaten the 2014 San Antonio Spurs in the NBA playoffs, even though they were both championship winning teams.

My jaw dropped. So I went to get a beer from the refrigerator and gather my thoughts. This was clearly not the woman for me. She was beautiful and she was intelligent but she had to go.

She didn’t understand that mythical match ups were the ultimate indulgence for boxing fans. When normal people had their backs turned, diehard fans of pugilism like to argue the merits of Joe Louis over Muhammad Ali or Harry Greb over Carlos Monzon, among others.

Short of having two boxers at the same weight doing great things in the same era who eventually fight, like Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns did at welterweight in 1981, mythical match ups were the next best thing. It is our right as boxing fans to break the rules of time, to leap across the ages, and match our favorite fighters against each other in their athletic primes. It is our guilty pleasure. But wait… It’s not as simple as it sounds. You’ve got to qualify why you’re batting for one boxer over another. It’s the unwritten “Golden Rule” of partaking in any mythical match up discussions. You have to be prepared to put up a good argument as to why your guy would smoke the opposition.

You’ve got to know your fighter’s strengths and weaknesses. You’ve got to know what made him special and what chinks he had in his armor. “Sure that fighter could punch but he hated training.”

Know your fighter. Or get the hell out of Dodge. If you’re misinformed or, worse, uninformed you could be the one getting smoked. There are a lot of people out there, ex fighters, trainers, record keepers, writers, and historians, among them, inhabiting the Internet boxing forums and group pages who are hardcore boxing heads who the term “Expert” truly applies to, and in the game of show and tell, they will rip you to shreds if you’re unable to present a coherent argument.

But I get it. They see it as their duty to protect the history of the sport from what I term as the, “Reality TV crowd.” Those misguided individuals who want to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. They will try to argue that Mike Tyson is the greatest heavyweight to ever walk the face of the earth. But yet none of them can qualify why they believe that to be the case without sounding foolish, because the evidence to support such an outlandish claim is simply not to be found in Tyson’s body of professional work. But as objective as we try to be, when it really boils down to it the fight game pulls at every human emotion. Joy, pride, disappointment, anger, and everything in-between.

It sometimes divides fans along national or ethnic lines. It lifts us up to dizzying heights and it drags us down into depressing lows. But boxing fans are like jilted lovers who keep coming back for that intense make up sex. Yeah, I said it. For us it’s the hope we’ll see that next Fight of the Year” or the “Super Fight” that surpasses all expectations. We’re hooked on it and can’t stay away.

We’re tied to the fighters we grew up watching. The music we listened to, the clothes we wore. The boxers we followed. All conjure up certain feelings. A bit like the smell of freshly baked bread might invoke a memory of a childhood moment at the family dining table. So, join me as I continue the mythical match up tradition by pitting the “Four Kings,” Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Roberto Duran against four of today’s best.

All fights are scheduled for the championship distance of 15 rounds. You read that right. And we’re going with same day weigh-ins too. None of this putting on twenty pounds over night nonsense. If any of these rules upset you, you’re watching the wrong sport. Go watch Ping Pong instead. There’s no political correctness here. This is the hardest game there is. Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier said it best, “Boxing is the only game where you can get your brain shook, your money took, and your name in the undertaker’s book.”

I’ve seen many heated arguments on the boards and forums over the years between fans of different fighters and when it comes to mythical match ups things sometimes tend toward the ultra serious with neither side willing to budge in the discussion. So, in the spirit of injecting a little light heartedness into the proceedings I’m going to use a few quotes from the Rocky movies to describe a certain energy around each fight. So get your hands up and your mouthpiece in. Here we go. “Ding Ding”.

“If he dies, he dies.”– Ivan Drago

In 1974 Detroit became America’s Murder Capital. The city had 714 homicides that year, the highest rate amongst the nation’s largest cities. In the hostile wasteland of Detroit’s Westside, the Kronk boxing gymnasium was a place a young man could go to learn how to fight and stay off the streets. It was from the hundred degree stifling heat of the Kronk Gym, under the guidance of Emmanuel Steward and Don Thibodeaux, that Thomas Hearns emerged. Hearns, 61-5-, 48 KO’s was a product of his environment. He’d rather spar with you than talk to you. That way he could see what you were made of.

In analyzing this fight one needs to consider the fact that Tommy has as many KO’s on his ledger as Floyd Mayweather, JR. has had fights. Hearns didn’t play around in the ring. He was a bomber with skills developed in the unforgiving cauldron of the Kronk where brutal sparring sessions were the norm. He could box when he needed to but he’d rather separate you from from your senses. Floyd Mayweather, JR., 48-0, 26 KO’s is undoubtedly the best fighter of his era. Head and shoulders above all available competition for almost twenty years, love him or loathe him, his career achievements speak volumes about the quality boxer he is. However, in Thomas Hearns he would be facing the biggest threat of his storied career. The “Motor City Cobra” has all the physical advantages in this bout. Chief among them height and reach. Hearns is 6’1to Mayweather’s 5’8. The difference in wingspan is 78″ for Hearns and 72″ for Mayweather, JR.

And then there is that crushing right hand Hearns possessed that could knock down a small building. Unless you’ve been sleeping under a rock you would be aware that Demarcus Corley and Shane Mosley both managed to hurt Mayweather, JR. badly. Neither boxer carries the kind of devastating power that Hearns did. If Tommy cracked Mayweather, JR. on the chin with a straight right hand of the kind he hit Roberto Duran or James Shuler with, you can rest assured this fight would be over.

Mayweather, JR. would have to keep moving for three minutes of every round to prevent Hearns from finding his range. Tommy had that fast long jab that could stop an opponent from setting up his offense, unless he was bull strong and could barrel his way in like Juan Domingo Roldan or Iran Barkley. Mayweather, JR. isn’t like either of those fighters so that option is off the table. Mayweather, JR. would have to take real risks to get inside those long arms and be defensively on point all night or risk getting blown away. Failure to get in and out quickly would result in disaster. Yes, he did it with Diego Corrales but Hearns is a much more dangerous and complete fighter than Corrales was. I can’t see what Mayweather, JR. has to keep a killer like Hearns off him for fifteen rounds. The pull counter right hand he’s become so dependent on as a welterweight wouldn’t be enough here.

One might be tempted to make a case for Mayweather, JR. based on the fact Wilfred Benitez managed to avoid Hearns’ big bombs and make it to the final bell in losing a wide decision. But I’ve always maintained Benitez was better defensively than Mayweather, JR. Benitez didn’t have to rely on blocking punches with his shoulder. He stood right in front of you and made you miss. It’s a higher defensive level in my book. Floyd can’t outbox Hearns and he can’t outfight him either. That would be suicide.
Tommy is too big, too fast, and too hard hitting for Mayweather, JR. to be able to launch an effective and sustained offense against.

I see Hearns walking Mayweather, JR. down behind a long sharp jab and Floyd constantly moving and looking to counter with single shots. He might be able to land the jab to the body on occasion but the right hand lead isn’t going to work. Hearns keeps stalking and applying more and more pressure until he bombs Mayweather, JR. with a big straight right hand to the chin sometime within the first six or seven rounds.

The shot lands flush with an audible crack and Floyd pitches backwards to the canvas flat on his back. The referee’s count is a mere formality. The shoulder roll didn’t work this time. Thomas Hearns is simply a caliber of fighter Floyd Mayweather, JR. had never seen before. That “0” had to go.

And Thomas Hearns is the man who took it.

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