He Still Has Good Fight Left to Give

He was boxing’s Hit Man, a study in controlled fury, and he could take you out with either hand. He used to go after his man like a contract killer. Life was a sequined robe and ringside tables at the best restaurants. He seemed to have it all that summer of 1981. Boxing belonged to him, or, at least, the welterweight division. Fistic fans spoke his name in hushed whispers, contenders ducked him. He won 32 consecutive fights and only two of them went the distance.

And, then, one night at Caesars Palace, Sugar Ray Leonard took it all away from him. Leonard punched him dizzy, draped him over the ring ropes and walked away from him with a leer on his face and his fists up over his head.

Thomas Hearns was never the same after that. He lost more than a fight, he lost his style. Before that, he used to make his fight like a man waving an Uzi in a crowded room. His 30 knockouts barely lasted a total of 110 rounds. The over-and-under betting on a Hearns fight was three rounds.

That Leonard fight changed him. He stopped fighting like a guy whose nickname would be Rocky and started moving like a guy whose name would be Slick. Or Gentleman Jim. He became nifty. He jabbed instead of slugging. He had the sleekness for it. He took something called the junior middleweight championship from Wilfred Benitez without getting his hair mussed. He got cute.

Then he got in the ring with Marvin Hagler. Now, if there was ever a fighter it would be a good idea to stay away from and jab, it would be Marvin Hagler. Hearns, unaccountably, thought the occasion called for a slugfest. Now, slugging with Hagler is like biting with sharks. It might have been the wildest nine minutes of fighting seen since Dempsey-Firpo but it ended up with a referee asking Thomas if he knew what time it was.

Thomas reverted to his caveman tactics once more--against the tough but unskilled Iran Barkley, a guy who should have spent the night trying to figure where Thomas just went. Barkley moves just faster than junk mail but he hits like a falling safe. The prudent way to fight him is from as long a distance as you can. Thomas closed with him.

Naturally, the fight didn’t last long. Barkley couldn’t believe his good luck. Normally, an opponent is just a rumor to him, a non-existent wraith who is beating his ears into vegetables.

No one knows why Thomas elected to fight Barkely at close range but Thomas thinks he has a logical explanation for why he didn’t keep clear of Marvin Hagler--at least for the first few rounds.

“It was my legs,” he explains. “My legs locked up on me. I had overtrained. I knew it warming up in the dressing room before the fight. I knew my legs wouldn’t hold out for 12 rounds. I had to take him out of there.”

Now, taking Hagler out of there is a job for an armed squad, but Thomas was right: His legs only went three rounds. So did he.

But it is the Leonard fight that has tormented Hearns for eight years. He fights it over again in his sleep, his dreams, his waking thoughts. He is like a guy who re-lives a missed putt that cost him the Open, the kicker whose field goal just went wide, the jump-shooter who hit the rim at the buzzer, the batter who took a called third strike with the Series on the line.

It was the night all the dreams ended for the no-hit man. If you’ll remember that year, Sugar Ray was just supposed to be a media fighter, an Olympic hype created by Howard Cosell and an overheated publicity department. Thomas Hearns wasn’t some Soviet amateur, he was a hitter.

It’s the fight people remember, the image they’ll retain. Thomas has had to live with it, too.

On June 12 at Caesars Palace, eight years too late, Thomas gets his second chance. He fights Ray Leonard for some exotic made-up title--the super junior cruiser off-middleweight championship of the North American Boxing Conglomeration or some such.

To you, it may seem like a major anti-climax. To Thomas Hearns, it’s a dream come true. Or a nightmare come to an end.

You would think Thomas would want a rematch about the way the Titanic would like another shot at the iceberg. Or Johnstown would like another go at the flood.

If there is any suspense as to the match, it has escaped public attention. The last fight ended with Thomas as hard aground as that Exxon tanker and the referee bending over him and asking him if he knew who he was and where he was. Legend has it that Thomas answered, “I know who I am but who are you?”

The question of supremacy between them would seem to have been asked and answered. Sugar Ray proved faster, smarter, stronger--and he hit harder. Thomas Hearns didn’t need a rematch, he needed rehabilitation.

Life doesn’t give you rematches. It doesn’t afford too many opportunities to make up for the chance that was wasted. Usually, we are just left with sour memories, dreams of what might have been or I-wish-I-haddas.

Thomas is not deluding himself. A victory this time will not have the impact that a victory eight years ago would have. He’s not going to turn it around if Thomas wins this time and he knows it.

But it can change the way Thomas perceives himself and that’s important.

It he beats Leonard this time, a lot of people will consider it eight years too late. Not Thomas. He figures it’s never too late to regain your self-esteem. He’s had eight years of wincing every time he recalls that September night in 1981. Pugilists are lucky. They get second chances. Others can’t erase that missed field goal in high school, that blown putt in the Open.

This may be just another fight to Sugar Ray. To Thomas Hearns, it’s a dream fight. He won’t go quietly. He’d like Sugar Ray to know, just once, what it’s like to have a referee bending over you and asking you if you know what time it is, and who you are.