Who faced the better version of Hearns

... yes, he hurt his right hand on Hagler's head. Which goes to show you what happens when the unstoppable force meets the immovable object.

The question was which version of Hearns was better and although he did choose the wrong strategy, Hagler was forcing the issue. The point is that Hearns was more developed, physically and mentally, as a fighter in 1985.

I also think that post-Hagler, Hearns was never as confident again. His chin became more checkable after that. Which is understandable. That fight may have been Hearns' absolute peak fight.

 

He broke it on Benitez's head too, hardly an immovable object, anything but actually. The whole Hagler's hard head broke Tommy's right hand thing gets blown right out. The fact is that Tommy had a susceptible right hand. Hearn's power, angles and where the punch actually hit is what did it.

 

Hearn's power was too much for the bones in his hand. That's a fact. Hagler had a hard head. That's another fact!

 

And one more fact, everybody has a hard head, even soft chinned Benitez.

 

IMO, the Hearns Leonard faced was the best Hearns there ever was.

Never did he box better, never was he sharper, never did he show better stamina, never did he hit harder in a p4p sense.

The Hearns that fought at 154 may have been "better", but not in a p4p sense. He was bigger and steadier at 154, but hey, so would most 154 pounders be in comparison to 147 pounders.

 

As a generalisation, bigger guys take better shots and are harder to move than smaller guys, no?

 

I think his peak fight performance-wise was the Shuler fight. He looked better balanced and he was throwing those wicked left hooks to the body.

 

Yeah. This is obviously confirmed that Tommy doesnt learned on his faults. So the argument that Tommy versus Leonard was unexpirienced is meaningless because Tommy didnt use so called expirience. :hey

 

An interesting third scenario. Allow me to expand on mine if i may.

I believe Hearns was at his peak at 154 for a collection of reasons.

1) Hearns, IMO, carried all of his power up to 154 including an improved body attack. Never mind Benitez, Sutherland and Minchillo, Hearns broke his hand during the Benitez chess match and stated he lacked a bit of confidence in the hand thru the Sutherland and Minchillo bouts. Sutherland also happened to be at 160. He stated just before the Duran bout he had full confidence in the hand again and boldly predicted Hearns KO2 Duran. This bout and subsequents vs Hutchings and Medal showed his devastating power at this weight. He also showed an improving left hook to the body, a vastly underrated punch in his arsenal. Hearns hammering of Duran at this weight is equal to any display of power ever IMO. It was at least equal to the Cuevas performance.

2) Hearns had finally, from the SRL loss, learnt to clinch and fight better when hurt. This might even be the biggest reason 154 was his peak weight, IMO. He showed zero ill affects from the Leonard loss, but also showed some very benificial positive ones. Better clinching post SRL at all weights added an extra dimension to his game. He quite possibly ly could have survived vs SRL if he'd only been as adept as he was later in this regard.

3) We never heard any instances or even whispers of Hearns being weight challenged at 154. I'm not about to proclaim he definitely was at 147, but at 154 he made the weight easily and was much stronger and more muscular. At 147 i thought him a little frail and at 160 i thought him a little harder matched physically as guys like Roldan and Barkley showed IMO. The physical jump and class of opponent at 160 was substancially bigger than at 154. Big strong middles were a dime a dozen.

Basically i think Hearns retained almost every advantage he had at 147 and picked up some added bonuses as well. A little, and i mean a little frail at 147 and a little outgunned physically at times at 160 by fighters he outclassed by miles.

 

Agreed. Whether the size is natural or manafactured I believe generally your statement holds true.

 

Please go ahead.

Agreed with everything you said.
At 147 he was a little faster (as Scientist said previously), at 154 he was, IMO, a monster. Knocking Duran out in 2 rounds was quite a schock at the time and, after that, he just destroyed in one round the guy who went the distance with Marvelous (can't recall his name).

Hearns was a true beast, he just failed to become the greatest fighter ever seen due to his shaky chin.

 

I'm not sure Hearns' had the same power disparity compared to 154 pound opposition that he had compared to 147 pound opposition. Perhaps. One can't deny his spectacular ko's at 154. The KO of Duran was as good a KO as you'd ever see. I think he may have knocked out natural welters easier than natural super welters, but perhaps that may have just been due to other factors like his reach which would have been more disparate against welters than super welters.

I thought Hearns always had a good body attack, even at welter. He hit Ray with some pretty good body shots. A lot more jabs to the body than hooks, but he still mixed it up well. He faced no one as good as Leonard at 154 and may have been able to go to the body more at that weight without fear of retaliation with the punches Leonard hit him with.

I agree with you that he learnt to clinch and fight smarter when hurt after the Leonard fight, though this wasn't really put to the test much at 154 from what I saw. He was never anywhere close to the trouble he was in against Leonard at 154 to see if he could hold some one off and recover in the depths of such trouble. But I suppose had he been, he would have employed tactics he didn't use before against Ray.

I've never really bought the weight drained excuse. He boxed on the move brilliantly against Ray, and never showed such movement again in all his career. His jaw also stood up to some great shots. Was he weaker at 145 than at 154? Sure, but again, in my view, not in a p4p sense. I think Tommy would take a better shot at welterweight than he would against a comparable fighter that is naturally 154 pounds.

 

Fair post mate, at the end of the day we both agree he was stronger at 147 than 160

:good

 

Thanks mate. I actually think he was as fast at 154 as he was at 147 but might be wrong. Definitely blinding at both tho that's for sure.

 

For sure. I would have liked to see Hearns at 154 against a real solid guy like McCallum or perhaps Julian Jackson, we might have been able to answer the question of where he was best with more authority. I'd probably take Hearns in both fights, but I'm not sure, especially against Mike.