Thomas Hearns' defensive skills

is there somewhat. He fought like a heavy weight. hands to his opponents face to play keep away.

 

Just so-so as far as talent and technique at slipping, blocking and parrying shots goes.Often left his chin too high up, which became a bigger vulnerability as he got older and lost his legs.

Good footwork, footspeed and very good control of distance with it meant that along with the threat of his offense he was a pretty tough guy to reach nonetheless.In that sense-at Welter at least-he's liable to be hit less than a large number of fighters with equal or better defensive skill.Someone like Tito for instance, despite his size and offensive ability was still hit a good bit more by the second-tier fighters he fought than Tommy was.He has a Roy Jones jr kind of thing going for him there, though not as effective due to being nowhere near as cautious.

The lack of a strong guard became a bit of a liability once he slowed a few notches and was competing at 160 where he often didn't have the same advantages in ranginess.

Fighters could bring the right hand over his low left with greater regularity and less chance of putting themselves at optimum right hand range.

It's been years since i watched it last so i could be wrong, but i also seem to remember him coming undone against Barkley was directly after he tried to give a bit of slick upperbody movement to Iran..and totally ****ed it up, leaving himself wide open for Barkley to drop a right hand in as he came back up from an angle.

 

Very good at range, but limited on the inside. He was good at rolling with punches, and slipping punches to counter at range. However, if you could back him up and get inside, you could hurt him (Leonard, Roldan, Hagler). I know people will point out Barkley, but I think Thomas was just careless there, he lost concentration in a fight he wasn't really motivated for.

His jab and boxing skills were also part of his defence, he kept you off balance and kept you watching that right hand.

 

He had some pretty nice moves that he showed now and then, but all in all it was by far the weakest part of his game. He held his hands low, his ching up and he could lose positioning and balance when under pressure.

That's why he got tagged much more against the bigger guys, when his advantage in reach was much lower and his power not quite as off-setting. At WW he was extremely hard to get too because of these advantages. Leonard obviously managed to and quite possibly Curry could have as well. At 154 he wasn't really tested by world class natural JMs. Would have been very interesting to see him against McCallum and Julian Jackson for example.

EDIT: To answer the question I'd say that his defense, purely defined, was average.

 

Hearns moved left with hands low while within Barkley's reach. A bad error. You could argue that it was just a momentary laps in concentration I suppose, but Barkley had almost been on target with several dangerous left hooks before that. Once Hearns opponents got in range, it was always dangerous for him due to some fundamental defensive flaws and a weak chin.

 

Against Barkley he got left hook happy, continually throwing the left hook to the body while moving to his left and then moving back in a straight line with his hands down with his chin in the air (instead of to the side or staying in the pocket to suffocate), providing countless right hand countering opportunities before Barkley eventually got him with 1 as he was giving up his height and moving to the left as Barkley came to the right with his overhand

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0uhAZeEA54[/ame]

EDIT, beat me to it, I think he was thinking he had to get the pressure fighters respect but he was sucker for an overhand right

 

Just had a look at it again on youtube.

He goes for a Benitez\Lora\kalambay'esque low pivot away from the jab, but Barkley moves with him and instead of punching from the low-angle gained by the pivot he just comes right back up with his hands low, giving barkley-who has stayed with him-a free shot.

A stupid unnecessary move.You have to either beat your oppnent to the punch with a counter or stay defensively aware when you make those sort of moves and Tommy does neither.

btw Barkley and Hearns both looked absolutely huge at 160 here.I'd sort of forgotten how big Tommy still looked at those higher weights.

 

Nice analysis on his style. We need more stuff like that here. Props, guys.

To me, Tommy's best defense was his offense. He had a tendency (and this was a flaw that stayed with him throughout) to drop his right hand. It got him in trouble in both fights with Leonard, from Leonard's left hook.

 

always different. Tommy took risks when he didn't have to and gave guys the openings to hit him. His punching power and speed made it so that he could usually hit anyone clean and often and with good effect. So he would go into fights and leave himself open to counters when he was trying to knock them out. He didn't pay for it much at first , except maybe the first Leonard and the Barkley fight.
After Barkley stopped him in 1988 on the lucky punch, his ability to take punches diminished, so he got more defensive and started going 12 rounds more. Prior to Barkley. The 11 fights prior to that he went 3 fights going the distance one 15 rounds and 2 12.. After Barkley 6 out of 10 fights were 12 round fights. He learned how to slow the fight down and pick his shots more and still win. He changed a lot. That is how he beat Virgil Hill with his jab. For a guy with so many quick knockouts, his final rounds total is just short of 400 total boxing rounds.I should go look to see the actual amount, but I remember it was coming up near 400.

 

Great footwork and can use the high guard. Good head movement though he was known as a risk taker many times neglecting it to inflict punishment. Not too different from Morales though he used more defense than him. What makes him so pleasing to watch for me is that despite being aggressive he knew how to fight tall and is very skillful. Don't think a boring Hearns fight exists.

 

Even the Olajide fight, boring by Hearns' standards, had it's moments.

 

Give it a rest. Hearns made an amateurish mistake and paid for it. More defensively skilled fighters don't get hit with punches like that. Bad luck has nothing to do with it.

 

Barkley had been mostly trying to have a standup jabbing fight on the outside with Hearns in the first two rounds as well.But he was turning fearless slugger in the third and starting to wing punches, after realising the more elegant approach was getting his head handed to him.

Hearns is always going to have issues with someone the same size and range who isn't treating him with respect and throwing unorthodox vicious punches over the low held hands.Luckily hardly anyone of such a discription exists at Welter.

 

Hearns and defensive skills don't seem to compute for me. His offensive skills were better defense than his defensive skills.. i.e. that isn't saying much.