Has anyone on here ever met Tommy Hearns

Great article and very detailed. I didn't know his daughter was involved. I hope it can get going someday as big as it was in Hearns day again.

 

He was very intelligent. He knew how to make fighters excel offensively better than most could. Make offense their defense.

 

Which is interesting because Shields always downplays that fight as though he was not himself. Tommy was just too good.

 

Tommy was great.

 

My dad saw him grocery shopping at Meijer a few years ago. He was just pushing his cart like a regular person

 

Ray a little deflated? I hadn`t noticed, but he did suffer from depression and developed of coke habit because he was sexually abused by an amateur coach when he was 15.

 

Did you know they hasd a kronk gym around the corner from where I used to live some years back? They knocked it down and built flats instead or something before it was a Kronk gym it was a seedy little gym, I sparred in their a few times as a kid and the gloves were in awful condition, I got my head punched in.

 

Deflated from when he was an active fighter yes. He is not the same arrogant guy he was in 1989. I guess who is?

 

In the most recent interviews I've seen of him, he says he's no longer "Sugar" Ray Leonard, just Ray Leonard - "Sugar" was the guy he had to become to be a fighter. It would make sense - after a certain point, the fire has to cool; nothing that hot burns for long.

 

SRL wasn't an active fighter.. He had his great wins then used his popularity to go in and out of the sport over the span of 2 decades., manipulate the sport and the boxing world said whatever you want so the money machine could keep rolling .. Pea is right. And the Hearns 2 example is a perfect one.. There is something that SRL doesn't have as the others do.. which is activity. Hagler, Duran, Hearns kept fighting anyone, anytime anywhere … I honestly believe that wasn't in the SRL make up, eye injury or not... and he knows it thus more humble

 

In Detroit? what year .. because after the original burned down they tried to get something going and it failed until later when they pulled it off … did you see the article I posted?

 

Sat a row behind him once if that counts! 1st, is I was blowed away by his height. He's listed at 6'1, but seemed like 6'2 when I saw him standing next to Tarver who is that height.
His demeanor is kinda fierce. One of those guys whose menacing look is chilling, however he took photos with everyone who asked him.

Came across as a quiet guy U shouldn't mess with. He really wanted his son Ronald to do well, but the kid aint nothing close to his dad, so maybe seeing his kid struggle to beat a no-hoper that night may have made him appear a bit melon-cony.

 

I think you are right. I think he put his all into Benitez,Duran and Hearns and that was almost a career's worth in 2 years and he felt that was enough to live off of until he saw another opportunity.. Maybe he did not think he would fight again, but it came up slowly.. The handpicking thing.

 

Late replier, but I wonder what effect that the tragedies that his Kronk teammates went through had on him. I remember his sister had at at least one child with J.L Ivey, who ended up a drug dealer who was shot and killed in Buffalo. Don't know how close he was to certain guys, but so many; DuJuan Johnson, Leslie Gardner, Duane Thomas, Bernard Mays, are gone and many others' lives went tragic that his memories have to be bittersweet.

 

Maybe he realises that , like alot of us as you age, you become less relevant . We all think things were better in our day and that things ain't the same anymore.
Time moves on quickly , it makes you sad and you go quiet . Once you were somebody then the passing of time fades that away.
Maybe hes just one of those people that gets it. Sad thing about a sports career is that its relatively short. You are totally defined by it , but you have ( hopefully) a large chunk of your life to lead afterwards when you gotta learn to be someone else , just something ordinary, that realisation can be a challenge.