Who fought the better version of Hearns

I thought it was supernaturally amazing he beat ANY ranking light-heavyweight. To go from Welter to Light-Heavy is one hell of a jump, and not-so-great fighter or not (Lalonde wasn't Spinks, but still a very good fighter overall imo) it was a jaw-dropping accomplishment.

I watched the fight when it happened, and I had no clue Leonard would win that fight, I thought he'd end up getting actually retired. The fact that he ended up knocking the dog poo out of Don was a delightful surprise for both me and the vast majority of boxing people I knew.

 

Personally I believe Hearns was at his best against Hagler! Leonard fought a possibly quite drained albeit beastly Hearns skinny or no I'm five feet eight inches and my Skelton weighs more then a welterweight the man is six foot one!
I oddly believe his bad chin could be credited to boiling down in weight he took shots worse then what Sugar dished out at higher weights just my humble silly opinion.

 

So you think Hearns is better at MW than at WW?

 

I do.

 

Really? Why?
Surely he matches up better with the best Welterweights than Middleweights.

For me he's a top 5 H2H WW and that's why Leonard's win is so impressive.
For me the only great MWs Hearns beats is Hopkins and GGG

 

I believe it's his natural weight and that he still maintains an exceptional size advantage over his competition that and his chin as stated seemed to hold up better as he got heavier.

 

His natural weight was definitely 154, he still had his wicked power, he had a reliable chin there, had enough experience to outbox guys like Benitez and was still huge for the weight

And his chin Definitely didnt hold up better at higher weights, he was KOed by Barkley...

 

I'll politely disagree another time I must depart cheerio George.

 

Cheerio?

Ta-ta!

 

My opinion is and always will be that Lalonde was not a great champion or even a good one -he had an ok right hand, but he was not that good- and on top of that he was weakened. It was a shame that Ray won two titles in two weights for that. He weakened a champion at 175 to 168 pounds, and won both titles. I do not think that was amazing. Lalonde was made for Leonard to beat. Czyz dropped him in the first round. Virgil beat him easily some years later when both were older. I don't see how that is too impressive and I never saw how Ray Leonard should win two titles when he should not have won one title. The fight was not at 175 for the title and he never was ranked at 168 nor was Lalonde to win that title.

 

Hearns learned a lot against Leonard, he went in too cocky, believing Leonard was not as good and he was 10x better and he thought he would be the typical Hitman against SRL, it was his biggest mistake not respecting Leonard and giving him credit as a great fighter himself, so even though he was the Mike Tyson of the WW division at that time, awesome undefeated and scary as heck, He clearly was smarter and better by the time of the Hagler fight and still in his Prime, but in my opinion, he still went in against hagler not giving hime enough if any respect, he did stagger Marvin early, but injured his hand and after that Hagler walked right through him, if Hagler had hated Leonard and Duran as he did Hearns he would have destroyed them also.