How do you rate Thomas Hearns resume

Yeah, I basically agree with everything you're saying. Even though I think pretty highly of De La Hoya, he has very few wins over peak prime fighters. Hearns beating a peak Virgil Hill during a time when he was past it, and moving up in weight at that was just one example of how magnificent the man truly was. Oscar also can't even come close to claiming that he dismantled someone like Duran, who was still very hot when he fought Hearns. Their resumes just don't size up evenly in my opinion.

 

People fault Hearns for dominating Leonard for an entire match and then being stopped, or losing to Hagler in an absolute war...

Oscar's someone who was dominated by fighters like Sturm and was given gift decisions in the process.

One of those is unlike the other, methinks.

 

Benitez is a fantastic and underrated win. He had schooled Duran about 13 rounds to 2 at this weight and was thought to have really found his niche.

 

One of the greatest. He fought all the best and always gave a great show.

 

I always found it funny how Hearn's basically treated Leonard like Norris would years later, knocking him down multiple times.

Norris said Leonard came back strong towards the end of their fight and was hurting him as well, too.

 

Hearns is one of my favorites because he was one of those fighters who may not have won every one of his biggest fights, in fact he lost his two biggest, but he was never afraid to go for it anyway. Never ducked a soul, and gave us great memories. Gotta give the man credit for that. Picking apart this and that and criticising this win or marking him down in our silly little books for losing that fight seems inappopriate. He stood tall against 'em all, win or lose.

 

I always dislike that quote when discussing Hearns. I prefer to say that he lost only 2 out of his 7 biggest fights - he lost Leonard 1 and Hagler but won vs Cuevas, Duran, Benitez, Hill and morally Leonard II.

Like I said before though he made 2 fighters genuine all-time greats by losing to them. How many fighters can say that?