Thomas The Hitman Hearns vs Tony El Torito Ayala in 1983-84

Great fight.

 

At the uppermost levels, Ayala is more speculation than fact. As a junior middleweight he never fought any of the top guys of the era, El Torito did not go up against Leonard, Benitez, Kalule, Hope, Moore or McCallum. Hearns, on the other hand, is considered by some to be the best 154 pounder of all time.

Hearn's long reach and fearsome power would have been the 1-2 combination which stopped Ayala somewhere around the seventh round.

 

I'm with you on this, Fog.
Be lively while it happens but Tommy stops him.

 

Lively is a great word choice. Ayala would provide pressure but he doesn't have the Marvin Hagler-type fortitude and skill level to make it work.

 

Excellent comment. You are right.. Ayala was not at the Hearns level and Marvin of coarse was. I think Tommy would stop Ayala in about 5 rounds or so in a mismatch. Once Ayala started to get tired Tommy would start to land his sharp pinpoint punches and swell up Ayala and stop him on swelling or cuts.

 

I always said the fighter who would have loved an Ayala matchup the most out of the fab 4 is probably Roberto Duran, and Marvin Hagler would have destroyed Ayala similar to the Tony Sibson fight. All the fab 4 would beat Ayala. Too bad we never really knew what Ayala had as a fighter at the top level of the fab 4.

 

Hearns early.

 

That's how I see it pal too.
Would be a good victory for Tommy.

 

it would probably look like the Duran massacre.

Ayala would have a hopeless height and reach disadvantage.

If he could get inside he could do damage but I doubt he'd get in there without taking huge right hands

Hearns bounces him off the canvas a few times before the stoppage which would happen within the first four rounds

 

Ayala held those hands way too low to be fighting a guy like Hearns. That division was very deep at the time and Tony's defense would have been exploited by quite a few guys. He was hardly nimble on his feet and was wide open.

 

I think all of the fab 4 and Benitez would beat Ayala. I always thought had Duran fought Ayala instead of Davey Moore he would have had just as devastating a win. He would have loved fighting Ayala and finding the openings.. Benitez did not give him the openings, and Tommy was fast and at a distance, but Ayala was made for him. I would say Duran TKO 7 Ayala. Actually he was made for all of them. Too open. Offense is good but Ayala did not have the experience to deal with the sharpness and experience and skill of those level guys in the 1980s. I would love to match Ayala with Donald Curry. I think again Donald would be too sharp and bust him up. Even if we look at Honeyghan, Lloyd had fasters hands than Ayala which is one of the reasons he beat Donald. I never thought that was a fluke.

 

I dont see any way for Ayala to overcome the massive disparities. Tommy simply is the better fighter.
Ayala goes down around the 6th round.

 

Mario Maldanado, basically a career journeyman (although he was somehow ranked eighth by the WBC when he fought Tony) knocked Ayala down in the first round of their fight and had him almost out of it — this wasn’t a flash knockdown or an off-balance thing, it was Tony stepping in post holes, wobbled and then put down with a sizzling right hand.

To his credit, Ayala weathered the storm and fought back well to do some damage of his own before the round ended.

But seeing how easily Maldanado was able to hit him when loading up power shots and how out of it Tony was, I could see Hearns taking him out early … even a KO 1. Ayala was able to counter some big shots even after taking them but no way he endures and wades through the heavy Hearns artillery the way Iran Barkley or Hagler did — Tony’s not in that class.

 

I think Ayala is getting penalized for his later exposed reprehensible behaviors here.
Hearns didn't just destroy everybody on the way to Hagler. Not Minchillo and not McCracken, and they were much, much less than Ayala.
Ayala didn't get to fight the upper echelon before his arrest, but he fought several top 20 guys and he absolutely wrecked them. Wrecked them. If the best example of his limits is a flash knockdown where he got up and destroyed the guy immediately afterwards, it's not a good example. Watching Hearns get stymied and look ineffective in just those two fights mentioned above should give someone pause for thought.

I say 50/50 fight. Hearns might catch him with dynamite early like he did Shuler, but Ayala was pretty well schooled defensively. If it goes any length, Ayala was a vicious body attacker and hard to keep at bay. I could see Torito wearing him down and winning late as a very viable outcome.

Of course, if it really would have happened, we all might have seen an uneventful 12 round snoozer where neither guy looks like himself just to spite us.