Thomas Hearns replaces Bob Foster’s LHW title run, where does he come unstuck?

Brilliant

 

Tiger was hardly the force he was at 175 as was at 160. He was more of a big MW than he was a bona-fide LHW imo. Similar things can be said about Benvenuti and his jump from 154 to 160 too though. Both men were quite a bit past their primes by the time they fought and, to be honest, I was never too convinced by Benvenuti. He was also wildly inconsistent during his MW title reign, and he did look to be having one of those off-nights of his against Tiger. To add to that though, Benvenuti also had to deal with a broken right hand from the first round onwards.
Tiger retired only 2 years after the Foster fight and was already 38 by that point after having been through plenty of wars and being 15lbs removed from his best weight. Tiger also had frequent issues with various illnesses around that time and tragically died of liver cancer at the age of 42. Add to that the fact he was fighting for the Biafrans in Nigeria and traveled as a prominent figure who supported them was bound to take away his attention from the ring and put more wear and tear on him by, y'know, fighting in a war. But if you just look at his legs against either Foster or Benvenuti, you can see how stiff his legs are, and the legs are the first thing to go in an ageing fighter and are usually a good indication of how shot they are. He was ripe for the picking against Foster imo.

 

Your picking him against the whole group. Not just the individuals. Totally different discussion.

Your also using his whole record opposed to just his 175 career. Foster has incredibly imposing advantages at 175, Hearns just didn't share. Advantages Foster could rely on whether he was having a good day or a bad day.

 

One-third of Thomas Hearns' pro fights came at super middle, light heavy, and cruiserweight.

He scored a lot of KOs. He decisively beat champions. Hearns weighed more for his fight with former cruiserweight champ Nate Miller than Bob Foster weighed for any fight in his career, in including his challenge of Joe Frazer.

These "imagined" size differences, like Hearns would have no chance against these monster fighters, have gotten ridiculous. Hearns was bigger than most of those guys. He beat bigger guys than most of them ever beat.

Nate Miller could arguably beat everyone Bob Foster defended against, too. None of Foster's challengers would, could or did beat guys better than Dwight Qawi, Orlin Norris and Bert Cooper, which Miller did.

You guys are harping on every extraneous thing you can except for the actual matchups between Hearns and those challengers, which favor Hearns in every regard.

I can't argue about it anymore. Hearns beats them all.

You guys even say you think Hearns would beat all of them, and then turn around and say "but maybe one" would beat him.

Maybe one WOULDN'T, since the likelihood favors NONE of them.

One guy upset Hearns in his career, and you guys act like it happened every other fight.

You don't bring up all the times Tiger lost. You don't bring up all the times all the challengers Foster fought lost. You can't point out anyone they beat who was remotely better than Hearns.

That about covers it from me.

 

I mean it was in his only LHW title defense. Its not just a random fight. Its highly relevant to this conversation. Hearns is a LHW lineal champ who did not defend his title and you're asking us if we expect him to defend a title he did win and failed to defend once...15 times in a row. The one time was a fluke but that doesn't mean I'm going to say he does it 15 times in a row.

I'm not saying Hearns "would have no chance against these monster fighters". I'm saying he doesn't have Fosters size advantages which Foster could rely on. You missed the point I was going for there. I'm not saying hes small for LHW or anything hes not Foster who was the tallest LHW champion I think.

 

Bob Foster didn't defend it 15 times in a row. He defended 14 times (13 wins) sporadically over many years, while he himself moved around to different divisions, suffered ups and downs, bad nights and good nights, got knocked out by heavyweights, got floored in a non-title fight by a guy with a losing record who had ZERO KOs (Eddie Vick), fought some bums in non-title fights, fought some bums in title fights, got floored and drew with Ahumada ...

Foster's wasn't some precision defense streak against some elite collection of light heavys. It was an extremely beatable group compared to a lot of challengers other light heavyweight champions fought.

I'm not sure why you guys are so insistent that Hearns must face them all in a row and Hearns must be at his ultimate best, when that was absolutely NOT how Bob Foster did it or how it played out at all.

And Hearns was an all-time great who beat fighters better than anyone on that list, and none of those challengers beat fighters as good as Hearns.

You can't convince me one of those guys beats Tommy Hearns, so that's all I've got.

 

Let's try this while being far more generous to Hearns.
I gave him an 85% chance to beat Tiger, Rondon, Finnegan, and Ahumada. Against each of the eleven other guys I gave him a 99% chance to win. Doing it like that, Hearns has a 46.7% chance of replicating Foster's feat. So even if Hearns is a massive favorite in every fight the odds are still against a 15-0 run.

 

How does a 99 percent chance to beat 11 fighters and an 85 percent to beat four ... equate to YOU ARE SO GONNA LOSE?

 

You've got it!

 

Simple mathematics.

0.85 x .0.85 x 0.85 x 0.85 x 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 x 0.99 = 0.467.

Therefore, given the %'s Clum gave (which were incredibly kind to Hearns) he believes its more likely that Hearns losses at some point than goes unbeaten.

I'm now wondering if I owe you an apology and if it's not your integrity that's the issue in this instance.

I assure you the logic, and the Maths, are sound.

 

That's just how probabilities work.
If something has an 85% chance of happening, then it has an 85% chance of happening, duh.
If two things have an 85% chance of happening, then the chance of both things happening is 72.25% (.85 x .85).
If three things have an 85% chance of happening, the odds of all three occurring are 61.4% (.85 x .85 x .85).
If four things have an 85% chance of happening, the odds of all four happening are 52.2%.

Even if the other eleven defenses were gimmes, meaning that Hearns could not possibly lose the fight no matter what, he'd still have just a 52% chance to run the table, if he has four separate fights in which his odds of winning are 85%.

 

But, in reality, Hearns was the favorite and fought 63 separate men who were underdogs in his career, and he lost to one of them (Barkley).

Using the percentages, even if he was a huge favorite, the odds are he would've lost every fifth or sixth time.

But it only happened against one guy. Not 12.

 

Incorrect. Hearns was betting favourite by fight time vs SRL 1 and vs Grant.

 

This is the jist of it for me as well.

 

That's not 12 losses. WAY, WAY, WAY short of that.

And one of those (Grant) was a totally freak accident involving his foot. Not the result of any punch or blow of any sort.