Fights that didn't happen: Thomas Hearns v Mike McCallum

I love McCallum, but people are losing their heads if they make Hearns a big underdog here.

Yes, Hearns was vulnerable against lesser fighters than McCallum - like Barkley. But guys like Barkley and Kinchen was hard punching brawler types that would happily take two punches to get one in themselves. Mike was essentially a boxer without a devastating punch and that was Hearns bread and butter. Sure, he could turn into a stalker and even punch it out if need be and was bigger and stronger than for example Benitez, but style-wise he fits Hearns better than the ones that troubled him the most.

And even though Hearns had some obvious flaws he also had some great strengths, so let's not make it out like this would be a gimme for Mike in any way shape or form. It would be one of his toughest challenges.

 

In his prime, Hearns was beaten by Leonard and Hagler. He was arguably still in his prime when Barkley landed that lucky haymaker on him and stopped him in 1988. Still before the Barkely loss, he was 11 yrs. pro, titles in 4 weight divisions, and only losses to Leonard and Hagler - a pretty damn good record.

your hypothesis that "name" fighters are all overhyped doesn't hold water. Sometimes, they are the best fighter around. Sure, McCallum was very talented and was a very good fighter. That, alone, doesn't guarantee he would beat contemporaries that were also very good and had more publicity and a bigger name.

 

Yeah, yeah. At 34 Hearns lost again to Barkley. Wanna know what McCallum was doing at 34? Beating Watson and Collins, and at 35 he was getting a draw against the 27 year old Toney. You going to claim Barkley was anywhere near Toney's league?

As for the 4 weight bullsh it. Whoopee do.Muricans might be impressed by garbage, the rest of us are not. Beating De Witt, going up to fight Dennis Andries who was forced to leave British gyms for his own benefit because he was too brave for his own good, and certainly too brave for his pathetic level of ability, and going back down again only to get sparked by Barkley, don't impress me. And what is with this lucky punch horse sh it? You telling me Barkley closed his eyes, and just swung in the general direction he last saw Hearns in? Don't be such a silly fan boy.


Dennis was very lucky to find someone even worse than him in J.B.Williamson to take a title from, but make no mistake he would have lost that title to the first decent fighter he met, and by that I don't mean a fat Tony Sibson.

There always dozens of excuses why fighters duck other fighters, and you believe all the hype merchants and liars, from Murica, and I'll believe McCallum when he explains why he blanked Hagler, and, Steward and Hearns for denying him fights.

 

McCallum's behaviour towards Hagler in those youtube interviews is pathetic sour g****s.I can much more understand him being ****ed at Steward and Hearns, but he's really got no call to whine about Hagler.

Of course none of the grovelling interviewers would ask the hard honest questions like why if he wanted a fight with hagler didn't he campaign at middleweight much earlier, as kalambay, Graham etc did, fighters who could also make 154 but clearly realised they needed to be fighting and beating contenders in the far more prestigious, historic division to force a fight due to having a smaller profile at the time.

 

I think Hearns wins by a close decision, McCallum was both awkward and slick and would pose quite a few problems for Tommy but in the end Hearns better ring movement and counterpunching would prevail, or not because I do believe it would be very close and could go either way. A great fight though and one for the purist.

 

Hagler must have been quite perplexed when McCallum said that to him. I'd be surprised if Mike even registered as a possible challenger during Marvin's reign.

 

It's a shame we didn't get a Fenech vs Nelson III type fight out of it

 

I've already explained why neither guy fought him. He has a case for saying Hearns fought ducked him. Hearns had a fight with Hagler all sewn up. There is no logic in saying Hagler ducked him. McCallum wasn't even fighting at Middleweight until late '87, early '88. Then he got an immediate title shot against Kalambay and LOST. Mugabi, who Hagler did fight, had beaten some top 10 middleweights and brought more money to the table because of his popularity and prescence on network TV. By early '87, McCallum's biggest win was against green Julian Jackson, who hadn't done much yet. There was no talk in the boxing publications at the time of a potential Hagler/McCallum fight. If you believe Hagler retired to avoid McCallum, I've got some nice swampland in Florida, I'd be glad to sell you.

 

All very well except for the one crucial fact that he was willing to fight the 154 Mugabi. And please spare me that nonsense about him being ranked. Mickey Duff calling in favours is no different to Don King manipulating John Ruiz into the rankings. Ffs 4 fights previous to Hagler the guy is fighting in South America, The Empire pool Wembley and Florida backwaters.

And if you are looking for pathetic lies, excuses and whining from Muricans go look at the thread that has been bumped about Leonard / Duran 1, and see how pathetic Leonard and Dundee make themselves look claiming Leonard fought Durans fight, when in the build up they made all kinds of promises about taking the fight to Duran, no hitting and running, Leonard would be the puncher in the fight. All kinds of big mouthed sh it.

Then afterwards, " Oh we fought Durans fight. The plan was to outbox Roberto. "

BOLLOX.

 

Ok, explain just what McCallum had done to become Hagler's mandatory.

Ps. And actually if you're looking at examples of fighters that had done nothing at MW but still got a shot at Hagler's crown - look no further than Duran. The only one who dropped a belt to avoid McCallum, incidentally.

 

Mugabi's high ranking was of debatable merit, we all know that Foxy.

But the fact is he still had ended up with it and Hagler had to fight him to keep from being stripped.None of which has anything to do with McCallum not getting a fight with hagler.

Of course once it negotiations started to get really underway for the Leonard fight, he was less interested in keeping the belts, but that's another story.

Bottom line, McCallum should have fought at 160 or at least alternated between 154 and 160 if he wanted a bout with Hagler.He didn't have the profile or established pedigree of already established lower weight stars like Hearns and Duran who could use that previous success to secure big money fights at higher weights by that stage of their career.