I've only seen this fight once and some thought Kinchen won it, anyone else feel the same way? I have to give the fight another look tomorrow.
Was a close fight could have gone either way, a point was taken off Hearns for essisive holding and could of been penaslised further, I think this was in the fourth round? where he was also dropped also. So he had a lot of ground to make up. Hearns caught James with a few good shots but he seemed to take them well. I feel that the 'Heat' needed to show a little more fire/aggression in the letter rounds to trully 'win' a few more rounds as most of the latter rounds were just 'won' by Hearns. He needed to show the judges that he wanted it more than Hearns, but just seemed to go through the motions. I have not scored the fight but thought a draw could of been a fair result, or just a point either way.
Very close. Hearns low hands and Minter\Benvenuti'esque defensive lapses were always going to be an issue above 154.
I recall at the time i thought Kinchen got shafted but i let bias for once get the better of me in that Hearns got too 5 title's first thus scotching Leonards act of outrageous ego tripping theft of the Lightheavy Title against LaLonde along with the innaugaral WBC S/Middle title 2 nights later in his ego driven quest to be 1st to 5 title's seeing Tommy was 1st too 4 when he beat Roldan. It should have been Fully Obel that should have been in that night, what do think Tommy's chances in that one were?
I thought Hearns probably won, but he was very close to being knocked out in round 4 and only hanging on for dear life saved him. Mills Lane couldn't separate the two and took a point away. If I remember correctly Hearns was looking pretty good in the first three rounds until getting nailed by Kinchen. He came back well from that 10-7 round though and hit Kinchen with everything but the kitchen sink.
After seeing how Tommy lost his first match to SRL, I guess I was more impressed with his clinching than anything else. He turned a glaring weakness into a strength, which was far more than Cooney was ever able to manage in the way of survival skills.
