Heair had quite a career … not quite a champion but a sometimes contender or fringe contender who fought all over and faced some of the top guys from lightweight to welter. Yet out of 134 fights (99 of them wins), the only video/film I’m aware of that exists of him is about 10 minutes of highlights of his one-sided loss to Roberto Duran. I saw him fight live a couple of times toward the end of his career, post-Duran. He was what I’d call a ‘world-class club fighter.’ Anyone else ever see him fight? Have any memories of him? And is anyone aware of any other video that exists of Heair?
Pat, I literally had to look up his record and count off how many times I saw him fight. I thought it was more because he was a very active fighter and always seemed to be fighting on the old Boxing from the Olympic and Boxing from the Forum telecasts, which I grew up on as a fan. I'm probably missing some of his earlier bouts that I saw, but from what i was able to glean, I can count 6 full fights I saw him engaged in. It was one of his bouts with Julio Lopez, another early one against Gabriel Vega, the Chango Carmona fight, the Tury Pineda KO, the loss to Rudy Barro and a win over Andres Gonzalez. Again, I thought it was more but that's it. Heair was a damn good lightweight, who should have never have ventured into the higher weights. He literally had no more punch above 135. I'm surprised he didn't get Rudy Barro in a rematch. He was taking him on after one of his nose operations (which really curtailed his career) and the 5 months he was off was an eternity for a guy who seemed to be fighting every couple of weeks. Anyways, between the nose operations (broken by Chango Carmona and rebroken sparring with Rodolfo Gonzalez) and separating from a good manager named Jerry Moore, his career went south. But as a lightweight, again, a damn good fighter.
I saw him fight at the Olympic when I was a kid. That was the fight where I learned that the laces on the gloves can be weaponized.
Great stuff everyone. I saw him live during what you might call the beginning end of his ‘last act’ post-Duran when the Memphis boy returned to the Southern circuit, fighting some good journeymen like Stepper Harris and Don Morgan (who was Duran’s chief sparring partner for Leonard II btw) and the likes in club shows across Mississippi, Memphis, Birmingham, etc. He settled in a small Alabama town, Hamilton, after his career and took up training a few guys and put on a couple of club show that I gather didn’t do too well. My brother and I were promoting and had a stable and we ended up getting to know Jimmy and I would talk with him on the phone sometimes. He was already slurring very badly and would apologize repeatedly because he was hard to understand and I’d have to ask him to repeat himself (and always tell him there was no reason to apologize) but he was sharp in his thinking, definitely knew the game. So in 1996, my brother and I co-promoted a show with him in Tupelo, Mississippi. It was a four-fight card (boxrec only records two of the fights and I can’t remember who fought in the other two, but I know it was four) on a 50/50 split. He had two guys on the show and matched them with two of ours. We did all the work with the commission, made flyers that he and his guys distributed, we rented the facility and he provided the ring and got it set up. We brought the concessions food (your basic hot dogs, chips and canned drinks) and he gathered up the labor to man the stand, we brought a portable PA system so we could do ring announcing and have walk-up music, etc. We drew a decent crowd — nothing overwhelming but I’d guess maybe 400-500 from memory. We cleared I’d’ guess maybe $1,500-$2,000. I don’t remember a lot of details of the show (except that the canvas had to be mopped and towel-dried because in the first round of the first fight a guy got his nose splattered and he bled like a stuck pig, haha), but I’ll never forget the aftershow: Jimmy and my brother and me gathered in a room. We already had envolopes with fighter pay set aside and paid the fighters and then deducted that from the til. We had a very simple but very effective accounting system where we could account for every ticket sold and how much came in and what we paid out to fighters, commission and everything. We laid it all out for Jimmy and showed him how much should be left for us to split. We then then counted the profit and it added up to the penny. We took the cash and divided it up and handed Jimmy his share … and he started tearing up. He said, in his mumbling way, in so many words: “I trusted you guys, but I’ve been taken advantage of so many times in this business. You did every single thing you said you’d do, you kept me informed day by day, you trusted me to do my part. You were fair with me from the start. And you paid me every single penny. If I never promote another show, I can be happy knowing we did this.”
Pat, that is an outstanding story. I loved it. You did good by him, when clearly others did not. I was reminiscing about him due to this thread and looking over his best wins, and there were quite a few. Wins over Chango Carmona, Tury Pineda, Angel Mayoral, Chucho Alonso, Gerardo Ferrat, Rudy Hernandez, Laudial Negron, Jimmy Corkum, Mike Mayan and Javier Muniz were not too shabby at all. I was checking out a writeup on the Muniz fight and it stated that a promised title fight with Guts Suzuki was hinged upon a win for him against Muniz, but it went bust when Suzuki lost his title in his next bout with DeJesus. A shame.
Let me add this: my brother and I did a few other shows partnered with people in their little towns where it was all on us and all they had to do was get flyers and posters up around town. Something that could be done in a few hours, just asking people if you can put them in the windows. And we’d get there the day before the show for the weigh-in and such and … you couldn’t find a poster up in the entire town. It was disheartening to say the least. Well when we got to Tupelo, I can guarantee you not a single person in that city who ever walked outside their front door didn’t know there was a fight. Everywhere we went, Jimmy and his crew had gotten those posters up. They papered the down. Jimmy was a stand-up guy and for sure did his part. It was a pleasure putting on a show with a guy I sincerely admired as a fighter.
When I went to see Tony Gardner in Memphis some years back, he said he still talked to Heair regularly and that Jimmy was still wanting to get in the ring with him and go a few rounds for old times sake since they never got to fight back in the 70's. One of those forgotten fighters who shouldn't be. Thanks for that story Saintpat.
