Hearns Leonard II

That is one thing I never liked about Duran. And the fact was, the guys he lost to were elite. And he never beat guys at lightweight who were elite like Hearns, Benitez, Leonard or Hagler. Then when he lost he always made excuses.

 

It's a machismo thing. A pride thing. An egomaniacal and even psychotic way of thinking. All serial killers think this way.

 

Good to hear...as time goes by...more info becomes available to the Public.

 

Hearns openly admitted later Hearns won. He views it as a defeat. He's on record nowadays in various places calling it a loss. I believe he first mentioned it in an interview that was in Jet 12 months later.

Here's just two video examples later on -

http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/men...ar-ray-leonard-rematch-pump-foundation-boxing

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Foreman lost to Ali because of his own stupidity. So I see why he would make excuses. Also Ali ducked him in the rematch. Foreman never made any excuses for any of his other loses.

Tons of fighters including Duran will make excuses every time they lost.

 

Leonard won the fight that mattered - the first fight

The second fight was all about the $$$.

What many forget is that most people thought Hearns would get destroyed in the second fight.

He had been stopped by Iran Barkely and hurt badly and barely edged James Kinchen.

Hearns did fight a great fight and surprised many.

Leonard did have him badly hurt in the later rounds but could not finish him.

In some ways, Hearns/Leonard II was almost as surprising as Leonard/Hagler.

 

I think both fights mattered and Hearns gets too little milage out of "beating" Leonard in the rematch. I've seen many others concur in here over the years. Hearns was still good enough to comfortably beat Virgil Hill at 175 a full 2 years later and 6 months after their rematch SRL practically shut out a Duran who had just beaten Barkley and was finally getting his chance at redemption on Leonard. Both were still world class performers and good ones.

It's a petty we never got to see them fight at their absolute peaks. For mine SRL was peaking at the time of the Hearns fight while Hearns was obviously a touch short of his. Leonards loss to Duran taught him a lot and he soared thereafter and Hearns loss to SRL in turn taught him lots too i.e. clinching, fighting when hurt etc. He was also perfectly suited once he settled into 154 weight wise. He was peak right around the Duran fight, free of hand problems at the time and as great as he was ever going to be. If Leonard had kept fighting he still would have been riding his peak imo (tho admittedly he was such a natural 147 he would have given up a tad at 154) and a matchup at this time would have been absolutely electric.

Fights between the pair at ay point of time all the way up to their actual rematch would have always hovered on a razors edge. I think Hearns would have had a great chance at 154 and could even see them splitting a pair of fights.

 

Leonard never fought Hearns at his peak. In the first fight he hadn't really filled out (was 2 pounds below the limit) and in the 2nd fight Tommy was widely thought to be shot, which wasn't quite true as it happens although he was past his prime.

I would say that Tommy's best weight was 154 and SRL's 147. In saying that though, a fight say in 1983 at 147 I would mark Tommy as a slight favorite and even stronger at 154. The upside to that argument is that Hearns with his frame would never be the peak version at 147 so you have 2 fighters who peak at slightly different weights. Under the old classic 8 weight divisions it's really a toss-up. Under modern 12 round rules I would favour Tommy quite strongly.

I don't like the way Leonard manipulated situations and waited until dangerous fighters were less of a challenge, as he tried to do with the 2nd fight with Hearns. He clearly lost the fight (and to his credit admitted it years later) but a helluva fighter nonetheless. Fights between the 2 would always be competitive and it's enough to say that both are genuine ATGs.