Is Tommy Hearns Overrated At Welterweight ?

It's all good mate but i felt you were underselling Hearns and overselling Mike. You'd feel the opposite. A deeper study shows a guy like Clyde Gray was rated the third best welterweight in the world when Hearns beat him up at junior middle. Harold Weston Jr was coming off a good challenge of Benitez' title. Hearns has some good fighters sneaking around on his record that rarely get recognised as there's plenty to overshadow them.

 

I’ll leave the deeper studying to you Buddy !!

 

Hahaha, good on you Goo.

 

I've always thought he was overrated at welterweight, he was a tremendous puncher and showed he could box against Leonard but he was in my opinion physically weak carrying 147 pounds on such a long frame and he didn't possess the best chin either. His prime as you nailed it was at 154 pounds. I think he takes a lot of losses against this list of ATG welters

 

agreed w/ this - his ww resume may not have been outstanding, but it's nothing to sneeze @ either.

I also think the manner of his victory over Cuevas needs to be taken into consideration - he didn't just beat him, he utterly decimated a hofer that had made double digit defenses, often by early KO. IMO, Cuevas is worthy of a spot in the all-time ww top 30, maybe even top 25.

 

He is 6 ft 1 and was 32-1 at WW. If you're looking at your top 10 as a WW P4P list Hearns belongs nowhere near there but H2H hes a monster at WW. And with the 32-1 the resume while not great isn't a glaring issue(thats almost 5 Usyks) H2H isn't everything but its probably the biggest component of most peoples weight class rankings. The resume just really needs to check off minimum boxes. In the early days Hearns doesn't check those boxes but by tweener era standards I think he clearly does.

 

Hearns is a shoe in top 5 WW of all time. Whether you want to argue it H2H or KOing 32 straight or whatever it was

 

I also don't think such decisive wins over ex-ww champs like Duran & Benitez should be completely discarded when considering Hearns' ranking @ ww simply b/c the fights happened to be held 1 weight class higher. IMO, Hearns actually beat a better version of Benitez @154 than the ww 1.

 

By the age of 22, Thomas Hearns had scored 32 straight wins, 30 by KOs, including wins over:

* WBA Welterweight Champ and Hall of Famer Pipino Cuevas by KO
* Former WBA Welterweight Champ Angel Espada by KO
* Former WBC 140-pound champ Saensuk Muangsurin by KO
* Former WBA 154-pound champ Eddie Gazo by KO
* Future WBC 140-pound champ Bruce Curry by KO
* Three-time welterweight title challenger and top-ranked Clyde Gray by KO
* Two-time title challenger and top-ranked welterweight challenger Randy Shields by KO
* Two-time title challenger and top-ranked welterweight challenger Harold Weston Jr. by KO (he never fought again)
* Undefeated welterweight title challenger Luis Primera by KO
* Welterweight title challenger Bruce Finch by KO
* Undefeated #3 welterweight contender and amateur star Pedro Rojas by KO (he never fought again)
* Middleweight contender Mike Colbert (Hearns floored him four times)

Not to mention Hearns had confidently outboxed a prime Sugar Ray Leonard over 13 rounds in a welterweight title unification, and could only lose the fight by getting stopped, which he was in the 14th.

It was a pretty amazing run on paper, let alone watching it happen. And head-to-head or based on record, he's one of the top welterweights ever.

Especially given that Thomas Hearns never fought in the division again after he turned 23 years old.

Few welterweights have ever accomplished so much at such a young age. I don't think I've seen one in this century accomplish that much at such a young age. Few do that much in their whole careers at welter.

 

You leave it at that because you know you are talking nonsense.
Benitez and Duran are miles above Curry and Mccroy at jr middle its not even up for debate.
Then throw in Fred Hutchings who everybody and thier mother were hyping to give Tommy a run for his money and Hearns beat the brakes off of him.
Then former champ Medal Hearns battered and stopped very easily.

 

No.

 

Good for you

 

Nice post , It appears some missed this a a few years ago when you typed this up in another Hearns is overrated thread way back when.. In fact I think you said they were still on the dock with their luggage as they missed the boat