I'm definitely giving this one to Hearns. He would out jab Marlon and his quick, deadly right would have him covering up. Starling had a pretty decent chin, and I can't see Tommy koin him, unless it's a after the bell shot!! Anyway Tommy gets a lopsided unanimous win.
I know it's tempting to pick Starling due to his success against Breland, who was so physically similar to Hearns. But Hearns was just so much better as a pro than Breland, who never really adapted fully from the amateur style, ever was. Breland didn't have the snap in his jab or overall punching power in general to keep Starling off of him. Hearns would keep Starling at a distance and work the jab and hit him with hard rights en route to a unanimous decision or late TKO.
I disagree, I feel this fight is interesting because neither Leonard or Benitez could deal with Hearns jab until Ray started walking down Hearns fighting like Starling, picking off punches on the inside and using brilliant offensive tricks, I don`t if Ray could have beat the Tommy that Beat Benitez though. Looking at TH at welter I felt the only way to beat Hearns was to employ a high guard very well, I think a good way to deal with a brilliant high guard is to have great reach that gives you the defense to match there`s via distance plus you can counter them well. This will be like Paul Williams v Winky Wright mixed with Nunn v Starling those are the closes fights to this when we have seen the high guard v longer reach. Jermaine Taylor had longer arms than Wright also, Tommy will land counter hooks the way Tayor did but Tommy was smarter than JT so should have more success. Good thread question.