Who has the best chance to beat Thomas Hearns out of fighters that fought below Welterweight?

The Duran that fought Hearns bore no resemblance to the beast that thrashed Ray Leonard

 

I get that Montreal Duran was a very different fighter to the one Hearns faced but he'd have to be. When they actually did meet, in real life, he never laid a glove on Tommy in four minutes and ended the fight flat on his face after the most one-sided superbout outside of Spinks v Tyson. A lot has to change to reverse that reallife result to make a case for Duran. This was only a year after the Hagler fight and he'd made weight. He'd clearly trained. Tommy may just have had his number.

JT has responded to the claims Randy Shields made. I have nothing to add.

As for Henry Armstrong, he might have had a level of experience Tommy never sniffed but Tommy had a punch that Henry wouldn't have seen too often. Henry's welterweight reign was a parade of former lightweights or jnr welters. Tommy would have been the biggest man he ever faced and he might have had issues going the championship distance with Hearns' jab, hook and right hand in his face.

 

Love Duran , he's one of my favorite fighters to watch.
But sometimes a fighter with the right physicality
can simply overwhelm another.
Hearns was a freak of nature at welterweight , and really
all the way up to middleweight.
Hearns was a fighter with the height and power of a Lt.heavy.
the reach better than most natural heavyweights, with the speed of
a lightweight. Also his skill level was masterful.
Hearns had a physicality and skill level that wasn't seen before
or since at welter.
He'd simply overwhelm Duran at welterweight. Even the version
that showed up and out in Montreal.
Duran may last a few rds longer, but the result would eventually
be the same.
Duran would be much more likely to beat THE G.O.A.T Ray
Robinson than Hearns.
The physical advantages is that big a difference between
Hearns vs Duran, as opposed to Duran vs Robinson.
Sometimes a fighter just has the right tools to beat another.
It wouldn't make much of a difference which version of Spinks
showed up for Tyson.
Or which version of Frazier showed up against Foreman.
Same with Duran vs Hearns......

 

Duran couldn't predict nor see many of Hearns incoming punches.

 

i also don't understand the duran picks.

not that i have a good answer. did robinson ever fight below ww?

 

I say this with no real conviction but more in an ‘I’d like to see him try’ sort of way … the ultimate spoiler, Sammy Angott, was a true lightweight who had decent success at 140 and wasn’t terrible at welter. If he came in at, say, 142 (and sometimes Tommy would be closer to the 145 mark, as he was against Ray in their first fight) … maybe he could make it just ugly enough to pull it off.

I doubt it, but Sammy was durable (went the 10-round distance with Robinson at welter) and he’d make it as ugly a fight as could be made.

If he’s at the end of Tommy’s jab, well, that’s no place to be for anyone. But if he’s able to get close enough to maul and rough things up — one punch and then clinch/fall inside, rinse, repeat — then perhaps he’d have a ghost of a chance.

Mostly I think it would be interesting to see how Hearns would deal with the king of spoilers.

 

Well JT, in the case of Hearns vs Shields, Randy was reaching back with his right hand repeatedly to give the shoulder he injured when he fell while doing road work a quick massage, so in that case, we do have continual visual evidence of his physical discomfort during their bout.

No, a healthy Shields certainly wouldn't have won, and he was buckled over and over by Tommy's right, but it may have gone the Championship Distance as Randy was previously able to extend Cuevas to. Of course the cause of the stoppage were repeated accidental head butts between these two tall WWs, and of course Tommy actually sustained the first cut from a butt in their contest, so it could have even ended against him (a horrible way to lose any title).

My contention is that Hearns was not yet at full strength and full maturity at 147, while Duran was.

Eventually, Roberto redeemed himself by proxy for partying his way into his brief foray against Hearns at 154 through what he did against Barkley in the Blade's greatest career performance between Iran's two victories over Tommy. For Barkley, Duran got into great shape, the sort of condition he should've taken Hearns on.

I am among those who deemed Duran as invincible when in peak condition, and after Hearns-Cuevas at 147, he would've been.

Harold Weston was 5'8" while the infinitely greater Duran was just an inch shorter. Yes, I believe that like the willowy Shields and Weston, Montreal Duran would've withstood Tommy's best shot at 147.

Roberto was only punched out twice, when he thought he was impervious at 154 and not rightly prepared in the match where Hearns truly and suddenly came of age at full strength and maturity, and by Joppy.

Frequently, I wonder how Duran would've done in a rematch with Hearns when he defeated Barkley, who at HW would retire Coetzee in a fine battle. It certainly wouldn't have been the first time he flipped the script against a previous conqueror. When he was fully motivated, he was an entirely different creature. (Hearns would've similarly crushed the Duran who couldn't take out Zeferino Gonzales after SRL crushed Andy Price earlier in that particular card.)

 

depends on the ref but if hearns gets any space that fight is over quick.

 

How the fight would be officiated would certainly dictate probabilities, but as noted Angott went the distance (10) with Ray Robinson, who wasn’t exactly feather-fisted.

 

i'd be interested to see it too.

laser right hands from the taller more reach guy is bad for basically everyone.

 

In Robby's filmed bout with Sammy Angott, he looks a great deal like Hearns at 147, not dancing, but stalking tall, and Joe 'johngarfield" Rein agreed with this, saying "Every moment was about putting the hammer down." Because of extremely superior durability and stamina, I do think SRR stops Hearns at 147. We have him on kinescope ravaging the tall Bobby Dykes on the inside, quickly making Dykes breath heavily with surgically thudding rights.

To actually stop Fritzie before the final bell is monstrous. In 233 fights, the Croat Comet was only halted four times, and Robby was the only one to do it closest to what Fritizie's peak was.

 

True enough. Manny said that Tommy originally "hit like a girl," and we do have his amateur footage for ascertaining that ourselves.

 

Yeah i favor SRR over anyone at 147. The guy is a monster, best H2H at any weight I've ever seen personally.

 

IIRC, Hearns had six KOs in the amateurs in I think it was 112 fights … or maybe 112 wins. I remember Emanuel Steward saying it (either on TV or I read it from an interview).

When he was turning Hearns pro, he realized Thomas wasn’t closing his fists when he punched, basically hitting guys with a loose hand. Manny corrected that problem and unleashed a monster.

Also worth noting in trying to pick someone lighter to beat Hearns — nobody ever outboxed Thomas. So the avenues to victory are pretty narrow.

 

Shields couldn't even see at the end from cuts caused by Hearns slashing fists leading to the stoppage. He took Hearns punches really well but his face didn't hold up. Hearns cut from that butt was inconsequential and never a factor at all in the fight and they actually stemmed the blood in short time. He was tough, Shields.

Straight after the bout Shields actually said he couldn't pick a winner between SRL and Hearns.

You're well read and probably know this one, but it's a favorite Shields story, an absolute ripper not many would know about.

From Max Boxing

In 1992, retired boxer Randy Shields was minding his own business at a local diner in the San Fernando Valley, CA.

It was nearing midnight, the cafe half-full of regulars. Shields was a regular as well. He was seated near the back of the establishment writing a screenplay when three gunmen burst in, one waving a shotgun that he fired into the ceiling.

Shields hit the floor and crawled to a darkened room at the back. One of the gunmen spotted him and fired. Shields felt a stabbing pain in his upper leg. He managed to back himself into the room. Bullets whizzed past him in the darkness. In all the commotion, Shields, who occasionally worked as a bodyguard at the time, remembered he had a gun.

The robbers wanted money. When Shields heard a waitress threatened, followed by another shot, he made a decision.

“I had to do something,” he told this writer a few weeks ago.

Shields did. He stepped out from the backroom, spotted the bad-guys, and fired.

“It was something out of a John Wayne movie,” recalled Shields.

The gunmen fled with Shields in pursuit. In the exchange of gunfire that followed, Shields managed to shoot and injure two of the suspects. Hours later, they were captured by the Los Angeles Police Department.