In the summertime of 1981, solely two boxers mattered in America: WBA welterweight champion Thomas Hearns, and WBC welterweight champion Sugar Ray Leonard. Because the earlier fall, when each males received enormous fights – Hearns knocking out the damaging Pipino Cuevas; Leonard forcing the nice Roberto Duran to stop — this was the largest match boxing may supply, the competition the entire world wished to see.
It was the traditional confrontation: boxer vs puncher. Leonard crammed the previous class, his quick ft and sooner arms thwarting even the hardest fighters, as all noticed in his rematch with the damaging Duran. Hearns was the knockout artist, the fearsome puncher they referred to as “The Hitman.” He boasted a thunderous proper hand and 30 knockouts in 32 wins.
The backgrounds and personalities of the 2 champions contrasted sharply as properly. Sugar Ray, the Olympic gold medalist, loved celeb standing, his dazzling smile promoting automobiles and soda pop. Hearns was extra stoic, soft-spoken, exuding an aura and menace. A local of Detroit, his climb up the ranks, whereas simply as quick and spectacular as Leonard’s, was additionally extra blue-collar, unaided by fixed tv publicity and profitable endorsement offers.
Billed as “The Showdown,” Leonard vs Hearns was lastly set and few fights in boxing historical past aroused such anticipation. Hundreds of thousands crowded into closed-circuit theaters world wide whereas ringside seats bought for document sums. And to everybody’s delight, the dramatic battle lived as much as the hype. Although not in methods struggle followers may have anticipated. Two components nobody anticipated outlined the match: not Hearns’ punching energy, however Leonard’s; not Leonard’s technical boxing means, however Hearns’. In different phrases, a reversal of roles.
The primary 5 rounds have been razor shut however belonged to “The Motor Metropolis Cobra,” his 6’1″ top and 78″ attain enabling him to land his jab and management the tempo. These rounds have been an agonizing train in suspense because the fighters, feinting and jousting and probing for openings, examined one another, the gang ready to see what would occur when the stalking “Hitman” lastly landed his cannon-like straight proper. However in spherical six it was Sugar Ray who struck first, connecting on Tommy’s chin with a depraved counter left hand, and the legs of “The Hitman” buckled. For the remainder of that spherical a surprised Hearns was battered with energy photographs, Ray touchdown vicious hooks to each head and physique.
If spherical six was a foul dream for Hearns, the seventh was a nightmare. Now displaying little respect for Tommy’s energy, Leonard pursued aggressively and early within the spherical took an enormous proper from Hearns. Nothing occurred. As an alternative, Sugar Ray simply stored coming, throwing heavy photographs to the physique to arrange a wonderful uppercut-left hook mixture that had Hearns reeling concerning the ring once more. An overhand proper nearly put Tommy down and the gang in Caesars Palace went berserk as Leonard chased and pounded his damage opponent from nook to nook.
Thanks solely to Tommy’s preventing coronary heart, the knockout didn’t occur. And now it was time for the trainers of those two champions to play their elements on this unlikely drama. Whereas the extremely skilled Angelo Dundee anchored Leonard’s nook, Hearns’ coach and supervisor, Emanuel Steward, was a relative newcomer on the big-time boxing scene. Boss of the Kronk Health club in Detroit, Steward had educated Hearns since he was a child, had taught him the basics, and now he urged him to desert the ring model of the knockout artist to return to them. “You’ve received to be the boxer now,” mentioned Steward. “Get on the bicycle. Stick and transfer.”
The subsequent three rounds have been a wierd sight to anybody even barely accustomed to the pure types of the 2 fighters. As an alternative of Hearns stalking, it was Leonard. As an alternative of Leonard transferring and staying one step forward of the damaging puncher, it was Hearns. The stunning truth borne out by this entire reversal was that Leonard’s energy, usually underrated, proved simply as lethal as The Hit Man’s. However now Sugar Ray had fallen sufferer to the puncher’s widespread mistake, searching for the one massive shot as an alternative of working the opponent and letting the knockout come naturally. Plodding after Hearns, and once more having bother getting previous these lengthy arms, Leonard allowed The Motor Metropolis Cobra, who just some minutes in the past regarded completed, to regain his momentum.
By the tenth, Tommy’s power and confidence had totally returned and within the eleventh he took management, dictating the phrases behind that lengthy, snapping jab and discovering openings for the proper. Close to the top of the spherical a proper lead adopted by a pointy left jolted Leonard, punctuating a spherical which signaled one other plot twist on this unpredictable drama. Within the twelfth the gang was chanting “Tommy! Tommy!” as Hearns pursued, whereas Leonard, his left eye badly swollen, appeared tentative, confused, his face bearing the wide-eyed look of a misplaced man scrutinizing a bus schedule. On the finish of the spherical, Hearns marched with apparent confidence again to his nook whereas Leonard trudged wearily again to his.
Now it was time for Angelo Dundee’s pivotal scene and yet one more turning level on this dramatic battle. The coach of some fifteen world champions and a peerless cornerman, Dundee laid it on the road in phrases Leonard couldn’t ignore: “You’re blowing it now, son, you’re blowing it. … We want fireplace and also you’re not firing! You’re blowing it … Ray, you’ve received to be faster! You’ve gotta take it away from him! Pace!”
And with that, Leonard sprang from his stool to start out spherical 13, not tentative, however taking the struggle to Hearns with urgency and finally touchdown a crunching proper hand over Tommy’s low left. For the primary time because the seventh, Hearns’ legs buckled and Sugar Ray didn’t let “The Hitman” off the hook. An astonishing, rapid-fire flurry of twenty-five unanswered punches had Hearns dazed and staggering. He fell via the ropes twice earlier than the spherical ended, and it was braveness alone that allowed him to outlive.
In spherical fourteen that very same braveness stored Hearns on his ft although actually he had nothing left. Sugar Ray was touchdown photographs at will and beckoning to referee Davy Pearl, who lastly did step in to lift Leonard’s hand. Nobody questioned the stoppage. “After I didn’t hear anyone shouting at me from Hearns’ nook,” mentioned Pearl, “I knew I had executed the proper factor.”
When it comes to twists and turns, it was a drama worthy of Sophocles, and the thrill and motion demanded a rematch. Sadly for Thomas Hearns, and boxing followers in all places, it could be eight lengthy years earlier than these two nice skills clashed once more. — Michael Carbert
