Oscar De LA Hoya vs Tommy Hearns

His chin gets overplayed way too much.

 

Hearns was a great WW. ODLH was a very, very good LW and very good WW who was highly popular.
Herans wins this. Hearns UD

 

Oscar would give Tommy absolute hell all night long. This would be a great, great fight, and another classic "Hearns goes to war" type fight. In my opinion, at the end of the night we would know we saw the difference between a great WW and a very-very good WW. Tommy wins a UD or possible late TKO.

 

Can't see this one going too well for Oscar. His best chance is landing a left hook and finishing a hurt Hearns off afterwards, but that is unlikely. Remember how badly Leonard hurt Hearns in the 7th round, after initially hurting Tommy a round earlier with a great left hook, and Ray couldn't finish him off until many rounds later and two more shifts in momentum. And Leonard is one of the ATG finishers.

Oscar is going up against a taller, rangier opponent whose hand speed might be better than his (at least for singular punches, not flurries), an awesome jab, and a right hand from hell. Oscar got tenative against Ike and said in the post-fight interview that it was because he was nervous about Quartey's punching power. Well Hearns is arguably the hardest puncher ever at 147, so Oscar will probably go into a bit of a shell and look for Tommy to make mistakes that he can capitalize on. Meanwhile, he'll drop rounds while doing so. I think he'll have success in spots, but drop a clear UD to Hearns.

Fatigue. Oscar admitted that he was tired and his legs were starting to shake.

And as much as you hear the stories of his corner telling him to stay away, you watch it between rounds and they tell him "box, box, box", and Alcazar saying "make sure they know you won the round".

 

It depends on Tommys stamina , we know that Oscar slows down after about 8 rounds.

This isnt as onesided as a lot of people make out . Oscar had a great chin , as good a left hook as you would want and was a very smart boxer.

Doe he win , I dont think so , but I would say it is 65 / 35 in Tommys favour.

 

this ain't a competitive fight at all. Oscar fights like a stiff robot when he can't get into rhythm and he won't be the ring general in this fight. Hearns knocks him out.

 

DLH was kind of inconsistent with his stamina. Sometimes he closed strong and had energy in the final rounds, sometimes he got fatigued and faded. He had a great 12th round against Quartey (although both he and Ike didn't throw much throughout the fight), Gonzalez, Molina, and had other fights like Trinidad and Mosley 2 where he got tired. I actually thought he had good energy level in the first Mosley fight in the late rounds despite losing those rounds, it was more of a case of Mosley showing GREAT stamina then Oscar showing bad stamina.

But that brings up another point. Tommy's left hook to the body was ****ing wicked and definitely the type of punch that take some of the gas out of the tank.

 

The one thing about Oscar which would not help him with Hearns is that he was always aware of the power of his opponent, almost too much to where he did not answer back. He had great counterpunching skill and good enough power at ww, not like at 140, but with Hearns he would have probably jabbed and his only real weapon would have been his left hook, which would not have landed too clean since he wouldn't have committed with fear of being countered by Tommy's right hand. And Tommy would have been content to jab and outbox Oscar like he did Benitez and Leonard and Hill. I think Tommy wins a hard tough UD like I stated earlier. With quick guys like Benitez and Leonard and Hill, Tommy would become more cautious and he would jab and win decisions. He was not careless when his opponent had more speed. Hearns was actually more careless and took more chances when he could easily hit a guy, then he would start landing and leave himself open like with Roldan and Barkley and other guys. Sometimes he did better with better fighters than with mediocre fighters for this reason. He turned easy fights into hard fights.

 

Hearns has like four or five first round stoppages AT CRUISERWEIGHT.

Oscar was never on the level of those early 80s athletes, leonard, hearns, pryor, hagler, duran; and Hearns was a bit quicker and fleeter of foot than Tito. Bad night for Oscar.

 

Yet Oscar beat 2 of them. Pernell -- and Chavez twice, easily. Yes, Chavez was getting old but was pretty much undefeated as was pernell until he ran into oscar. Those are 2 legends who Oscar defeated. Pernell was an awful fight, Oscar engaging and Pernell running. Nothing much landed all night except a couple combo's from Oscar and a few jabs from pernell. But Oscar won. to say he wasn't on the level of those 80s legends is wrong. He beat 2 of them, and Pernell wasn't that far off his prime.

 

Pernell was not on the level of Hagler, Hearns, pryor, and the 15 round fighters. And his last seven fights really showed how much his legs were removed from his prime: he suddenly got shot and only his extreme skill kept him in the game. Diabolys Hurtado was a lucky late come from behind stoppage win he pulled out with heart - if he lost that, no oscar fight. and still it was a controversial decision for Oscar. I don't think Pernell was anywhere near his best against Oscar, but he had a "good" night for having his legs be nothing like they used to be.

 

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I think Pernell is an ATG. So is Oscar.

 

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Pernell's eye did get f'd up that fight. It looked bad post fight

 

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I will give you that, Pernell and Oscar are ATGs ... but Hearns was a terror from welter to light heavy, being the first guy to beat light heavy champ virgil Hill, knocking guys out at Cruiserweight, deserving the second fight against Leonard and ahead on points in the first. The biggest knock on Hearns are of course the hagler and Barkley fights, but Barkley was if nothing else a murderous super middle hitter. Oscar would never have been effective at middleweight, its just a bad head to head for him, Hearns was a decent light heavy and one of the top three welters of all time.