Tommy Hearns or Alexis Arguello, who's more accomplished?

Rooney is barely a notable win. He's only thought of because he's known for training. Lovely K.O of course :good

 

That was my point. And yes it was a beautiful ko.

 

Definitely need too see some more tape on arguello before I make a proper judgement on this one. Cheers for that :good

 

Thomas Hearns was a household name more than Arguello so right there he was a top known fighter. I am not sure you can find many guys with the top legends he fought if you look at resume. Lucky guys to have all those guys there to fight him. He didn't have just HOF guys Hearns had ATG guys to fight. Who could match his resume of big fights? Delahoya? Leonard Duran, Hearns. They fought them all even though Oscar,Tommy and Roberto did not beat them all .Ray did. I give him respect.

 

Something to consider about Alexis is that he NEVER lost a title defense. Some research I undertook a few years ago indicated that Arguello, while not the first man to win a title in more than one division, or even defend successfully in more than one division, may be the very first champion in Queensbury history to successfully defend in more than one division without ever losing a title defense, and he did it in three different divisions, not just two.

Benitez wanted to be the first Hispanic to win championships in three different divisions, and he just did beat Alexis to this achievement, but when El Flaco defeated Mancini, he became the first to ever successfully defend in three different weight divisions. He may have died never realizing what monumentally unprecedented achievements he did accomplish.

Hearns lost the WW unification to SRL by stoppage, and he lost his MW and LHW Titles to Barkley (the first of those also by stoppage to the Blade), the sort of dethroning no challenger ever came close to doing to Arguello.

Tommy officially beat three currently enshrined HOFers in Cuevas, Benitez and Duran, and SRL readily concedes Hearns was the rightful winner of their rematch, while Alexis did this to Olivares and Chacon only among present denizens of Canastota.

Arguello is 16-0-0 in title defenses over three weight divisions. Tommy is 9-2-0 in title defenses, depending on how you define a defense. (I consider SRL I & II to be unifications, not defenses. Redefine these as defenses, his record falls to 9-3-1 in these situations.)

Close call, here, extremely close. I consider Alexis to have been the greater champion, and he defeated at least 13 other titleholders during his career. (Olivares, Royal Kobayashi, Escalera 2X, Limon, Chacon, Navarrete, Boza Edwards, Ramirez, Watt, Mancini, Ganigan, Noel and Costello.) Hearns did all he was speculated of being potentially capable of while still a teenager (even before taking on Cuevas), and I've no problem with anybody preferring Tommy in this comparison, but my bias is for the greater champion, as the title was always the primary target for challengers, and nobody ever knocked Arguello off his thrones to take his belts.

 

Yes, that is a stat in Alexis' favour that I should've mentioned. Lovely breakdown, as always :good

Things to take into consideration not on paper: I certainly don't think Arguello beat Ramirez, though he gave a good account of himself (non-title ten rounder) and I definitely think Hearns beat Ray second time round.

 

I've never watched the entirety of Arguello-Ramirez, although Jose's knockdown of Alexis got endless replays. It says something for Arguello though that he was rooting for Ramirez to defeat Mancini in the worst way so he could make his inaugural LW title defense in a championship distance rematch against the Mexican southpaw. (He expressed this in no uncertain terms in a prefight interview from ringside on CBS, but came away tremendously impressed with Boom-Boom's 12 round shutout performance, with Mancini utilizing unexpected in and out movement.)

Other posters here who have viewed Arguello-Ramirez from beginning to end are hardly unanimous as to who deserved that decision. Many believe Alexis edged it after coming off the deck.

 

Good info Duderum.

And c'mon people! Hearns might be the more popular one but this poll should be split within the middle. Either guy can nick it and if I had to pick one I might go with Arguello and Hearns is one of my top favs. Probably #1 if not tied with Hagler. Very hard to call but the important thing is to recognise what these great champions have done and be thankful there's footage of them for us to analyze.

 

The thing which happened to Hearns rarely happens to a fighter. He got a taste of fighting the best guys like Cueves and Leonard and everytime another great came up to fight he fought them, even if it meant abandoning his current division to move up and fight someone else like Hagler. I think it distracted his title defenses a little. That is a case of too many guys in his divisions to fight.
Always moving up and down to fight. He probably could have had 15 defenses. As it turns out he has about 20 title fights. If I count his title fights. Cueves,Primera,Shields,Baez,Leonard Welt 5,,,, Benitez,Michillo,Duran,Hutchings 154 he had 4.. Hagler,Roldan,Barkley 3. up to 12 168 he fought Kinchen,Leonard,Olajide 3 15 so far. Light heavyweight Andries,Hill,BArkley 3 18 title fights. Matters if you count his cruiserweight titles which he has the IBO,WBU and IBF. I think he should have stayed at Junior middleweight and had 10 title defenses, But in those years he had so many guys to fight what are you going to do? Have title defenses against a guy like Buster Drayton or fight Marvin Hagler for the middleweight title?

 

Arguello. Tommy lost all of his superfights, Leonard, Hagler. Arguello at least won some, and he had more defenses. American fighters can accomplish those things easier than Latin fighters because they are better known than people like Alexis. But for me, Arguello
And he NEVER EVER lost his title in the ring. Tommy did lose it and to a guy who he should have beat.

 

I do wish people would stop trying to make out Hearns win over Andries was some great achievement. Dennis was a woeful fighter, anything above domestic level and he was in **** street. As evidenced by Hearns staying away from the 175 division for 4 more years after their fight.