Awesome display of body punching from Tommy. No doubt about it, Hearns was a wrecking machine and this is right up there with his best performances imo. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FO8JZI53bjc
Sadly, Shuler died a week later in a motorcyle accident at age 26. He was 178-6 as an amateur and, IIRC, a gold medalist at the Pan Am Games. Bob Arum said after the Hearns fight -- where Shuler lost by spectacular knockout -- the fighter came to his room and thanked him for promoting the bout ... the only time any fighter had ever done that after a loss. Who knows whether James would have bounced back from that defeat, but boxing lost a good fighter and a good guy when he died.
That is a sad story. More importantly than boxing losing a participant, A young man who had decency lost what might have turned out to be a good long life.
That was probably Hearn's best KO at 160. To be honest, Shuler was not too great in the chin department. It was a good matchup for Hearns. Others like DeWitt, Sutherland were able to take great punishment from Hearns at that weight. Shuler was staggered badly in the Kinchen fight, but Kinchen didn't seem to go after him. Other than that, his best win was a decision over the half-blind Sugar Ray Seales.
