Fighters of the Century per Futch/Dundee/Clancy/Duva/Chargin - The Welterweights.

Well i said it, and it's been regurgitated so i'll back it for kicks.

Hearns - Cuevas was a legitimate superfight and it was billed as such at the time. Cuevas had made 11 defenses of his WBA title and only one guy had lasted the distance. He left a trail of broken bones in his wake. Hearns was 28 zip with 26 knockouts behind him. The anticipation of a meeting between two such incredibly brutal punchers was electric.

Hearns brutalized him in ridiculous fashion. Cuevas was considered by many to be the hardest punching welterweight in history and he also complemented this with a jaw that was considered to be iron. Hearns shattered it as if it was china.

It's immensely likely no-one else in the history of the division could have done such a job on Cuevas in just two rounds. They'd have to not only beat him, and KO him, but do it in two rounds.

You meant Graham from memory. Not even close for me. Not even remotely. Graham was on his third try at Giardello within the space of seven months. Giardello's best was yet to come. In his last 13 fights Giardello had failed to win 6 of them. There was no title at stake. Giardello was a decade away from winning a title.

Hearns won Ring Magazines Fighter of the Year honors for his demolition of Pipino. Not bad for a win over a "contender", one that "wasn't even top three in the division".

Bear in mind that year included SRL's revenge on Duran. Hearns however was considered above. Hagler also became champion. It looks like Hearns win over Cuevas was indeed ranked extremely highly - at that exact moment in time.

As for Cuevas never winning another meaningful fight? So what? History is littered with such examples and similar. The fact of the matter is that Hearns - Cuevas is actually a legitimate example of one guy ruining another. The term gets bandied about far far too often but here we actually have the genuine article. It was widely speculated at that time that Cuevas might never recover.

You don't know the era "inside and out" George. Sure you've done an impressive amount of research and know it better than most. Not inside out tho. You simply don't have enough access to enough of the tidbits and insights among other things. A lot of it is gone or not readily obtainable.

Romanticism is possible looking back at any era from well forward of it. So to is historical revisionism. We see this almost daily in here.

Of course there are plenty of people who lived the era that don't have much of a clue. Some people just can't take things in.

You used hindsight in a comment above - well in hindsight Benitez never fought at 147 again.

He was certainly better than you believe IMO.

Duran's win over Palomino better than Hearns over Cuevas? You have to be kidding. You keep mentioning Cuevas wasn't top 3, well where was Palomino? He'd lost his last fight so certainly wasn't ahead of Cuevas and Benitez. I doubt he was ahead of Hearns by this point. Duran was favorite so he probably wasn't ahead of him either. SRL was near the top as well. He may not have been top 5.

Cuevas never won another meaningful fight but Palomino didn't even fight again, unless you count returning almost 20 years later.

Hearns was behind Leonard in development, that is carved in stone. Leonard was at his absolute peak in this fight. Despite this he was taken to hell and back in a fight that needs no explanation. It was two ATG's taking it down to the wire. Hearns boxing was eye opening to many that didn't think he had that sort of string to his bow.

Fighters can be extremely impressive in a loss. Do you give Duran any credit at all for his effort against Hagler?

How about Gavilan running SRR close in fight 1?

In essence what you are saying is that you would rate Hearns loss the same as if he was ko'd with the first punch of the fight. Same with Duran per Hagler. I can't agree on that one.

 

BINGO!