BOXING : Hearns Breaks Longtime Kronk Tie to Embark on Venture With Smith

If boxing has ever had an indivisible team, it was based at Detroit’s Kronk Gym.

Team Kronk. Its members weren’t hard to spot--in airports, hotel lobbies or fight arenas. Everyone was decked out in red and gold jogging suits and matching gym bags.

And if any two Kronk members seemed inseparable, it was the team’s founder, Emanuel Steward, and Kronk’s top gun, Thomas Hearns.

No more. Hearns has left Steward and Kronk for, believe it or not, Harold Rossfields Smith of Los Angeles.

The Hearns-Steward split isn’t pretty. The breakup came amid name-calling and messy charges over money and alleged dishonesty. But then, in boxing, this is news?

Steward accused Smith, the high-flying 1970s promoter who served 5 1/2 years in federal prison for embezzling $21.3 million from Wells Fargo Bank, of talking Hearns into leaving Kronk. In boxing, inducing a fighter to leave his manager is known as “buzzing.”

Steward said: “Harold came into town (Detroit) a few weeks ago, told me he had a possible TV deal for Kronk fighters and that he needed some money to put it together.”

“I gave him $11,000. I put his hotel bills and his rental car on my credit card, and I loaned him $1,000 in cash, so he could have some walking-around money. I’ve got receipts for everything.

“And the whole time, the . . . was two-timing me with Tommy behind my back.”

Steward said Hearns left over a difference of opinion on whether Hearns, 31 and a pro since 1977, should retire. Hearns wouldn’t say why he left Steward, only that he “wasn’t happy.”

“I wasn’t in favor of Tommy fighting again unless he could get another (Sugar Ray) Leonard fight,” Steward said. “I got out the films of his fights since the (James) Shuler fight in ‘86, and I could see clearly the deterioration in his ability.

“He knows I feel this way, and he disagrees. So now he talks only to Harold Smith. My attitude now (toward Hearns) is, ‘Goodby, and good luck.’ ”

Smith, who will act as Hearns’ adviser, had a markedly different version.

“Tommy came to me and told me he wanted me to handle his affairs,” he said. “And he told Emanuel that, that he wanted to go out on his own.

“On Aug. 2, 1980, I promoted the show in Detroit (Hearns-Pipino Cuevas) that made Tommy a world champion. Ten years later, to the day, Tommy flew to L.A. to talk to me about my handling him. He knows he never would have got that title shot with Cuevas without me; Emanuel never could have done it. It took a tremendous amount of money to get Cuevas to fight Tommy in his backyard (Detroit).”

Of course, years later, it might be questioned whose money was involved. The FBI said at the time of Smith’s trial that the Wells Fargo case was the biggest bank computer fraud case in U.S. history.

“Of all the people I ever dealt with in boxing,” Smith said, “I spent more money on Emanuel than anyone. Yet, during my period of incarceration, my time of crisis, he never contacted me once. I saw him at the Leonard-(Roberto) Duran fight, and all he said to me was, ‘Hi, how ya’ doin?’ ”

Dennis Rappaport of New York said he will promote Hearns’ future fights.

Many in boxing have urged Hearns to retire. His friends worry about his slurred speech. Since the 1986 one-round knockout of Shuler, he has seldom reminded anyone of the late 1970s and early 1980s welterweight who lit up boxing with numerous, sensational one-punch knockouts. Until he was stopped by Leonard in 1981, Hearns had knocked out 30 of 32 opponents.

Recent shaky performances--he was stopped by Iran Barkley in 1988 and seemed to have lost a lot in other appearances--are due to unhappiness, Hearns said this week.

“I haven’t looked the same because I’ve been worried and unhappy; I haven’t been able to give my all,” he said.

“The last couple of years, I haven’t been happy. What Thomas Hearns wants to do now is give the people those kinds of performances he used to give.”

Boxing Notes

According to reports from Mexico, Jorge Paez has gone into a prison camp-like setting to prepare for Tony Lopez in Sacramento next Saturday. He is said to be training in the mountains north of Mexico City, where there are no telephones, TVs or distractions of any kind. Further, only designated couriers can deliver messages to him.

Forum regular Raul Perez, the World Boxing Council bantamweight champion from Tijuana, is a big favorite tonight to beat No. 1 contender Pepillo Valdez in Culiacan, Mexico.

Reports of new World Boxing Assn. welterweight champion Aaron Davis’ fourth-round knockout of trial horse Billy Durbin in Minnesota Thursday described him as unimpressive.

Recommended: Photographer Jim Britt’s boxing photo exhibition, running through October at the Wiltern Theater Building in Los Angeles. Britt has photographed bantamweight Paul Gonzales extensively at 10 of his fights, and his pictures have captured the sport’s grit and grime, as well as the prefight tension and anxiety. The exhibit, in the offices of Rachlin & Rachlin Architects at 3780 Wilshire Blvd., is open from noon to 5 p.m. weekdays.

Randy Shields, 34, inactive since 1983, was given a boxing license after being observed at a workout by commission official Dale Ashley.