Hill Will Try to Win End of Great Chase : Boxing: The light-heavyweight champion will fight Hearns tonight, a bout that will end nearly a year of frustration.

Two driven men, both at pivotal points in their boxing careers, meet in a light-heavyweight championship match at Caesars Palace tonight.

Virgil Hill, 27, the unbeaten champion from North Dakota, will make his 11th title defense against an opponent he has been chasing for nearly two years, Tommy Hearns, 32. This is Hill’s opportunity to join boxing’s seven-digit payday club. First he will have to defeat Hearns, a slight underdog who is moving up to the light-heavyweight class. The former welterweight champion has talked this week of winning Hill’s title, then moving up again in weight in search of what would be a seventh championship, in the cruiserweight class. Hearns won a light-heavyweight title once before, in 1987, but then surrendered the championship.

Hill-Hearns came together in December at the Las Vegas airport, where the participants literally bumped into each other.

“I was flying in to Vegas from Phoenix and Tommy was going to Detroit,” Hill said. “I’d wanted a Hearns fight for almost a year, and I was so frustrated that the fight kept falling out.

“So all of a sudden, there he was. I walked up to him and said: ‘Tommy, let’s you and me put this thing together. You need me and I need you. It’s a great opportunity for both of us and it’s a chance to do something great for the light-heavyweight class.’

“He agreed, we talked some more, he gave me his beeper and car phone numbers, and we both talked to our people. Two days later, my manager, Gary Martinson, called Tommy directly. From that point on, it came together.”

Historically, the light-heavyweight division has been trapped in obscurity between boxing’s spotlighted divisions, middleweight and heavyweight. Hill was still a relatively obscure North Dakota fighter when he upset Leslie Stewart in Atlantic City in 1987 and won the championship. Yet even after 10 successful defenses he still wasn’t a well-known fighter. Now, because he ran into Hearns at an airport, he is. Therefore, the challenger, Hearns, will make $3.5 million tonight, the champion, Hill, $1.3 million.

Hearns, an exciting performer since his 1980 knockout of Mexico’s Pipino Cuevas, has struggled in recent years. Some wrote him off in 1988, after Iran Barkley stopped him in three rounds.

He was also wobbly legged and unimpressive in a 1988 victory against James Kinchen. His best performance since the Barkley loss was his 1989 draw with Sugar Ray Leonard, a fight many ringsiders thought he had won.

Those backing Hill tonight note that Hearns has never had great legs in his career, and Hill, who is an exceptionally swift boxer, should prove troublesome. And for all of his reputation as a puncher, Hearns hasn’t knocked out a prominent fighter since he stopped Juan Roldan in 1987.

Hearns, for all his million-dollar fights in the 1980s, said this week he “didn’t have a good decade” because of losses to Leonard (1981), Marvelous Marvin Hagler (1985) and Barkley (1988).

“I don’t consider myself a great fighter because of those three losses,” he said.

Hearns is unsure of what to expect from Hill.

“Of all my fights, this one is the most difficult to figure,” he said. “I don’t know if Virgil will come out fighting or running. I’d prefer he comes out fighting.”

In the Hill camp, some wonder if Hearns’ once-devastating right hand will carry the same power at 174 pounds (Hill weighed in at 173).

“We’re not sure Tommy will hit all that hard at light-heavy,” said Hill’s trainer, Freddie Roach. “Lots of times, when punchers move up in weight, they don’t take their punch with them.”

And Hill’s punches?

“We see in the Hearns-Hagler tape that Tommy didn’t do well at all when Hagler went after him,” Roach said. “We may make Tommy fight in Round 1. Those old legs of his don’t work so good backing up.”

Boxing Notes

The fight will be the Forum’s debut on the big-time, pay-per-view fight scene. Caesars is the venue, but the Forum is the promoter of what its staff says is the first of a series of major pay-per-view shows. And with the recent announcement that Bruce McNall, owner of the Kings, has joined the Forum enterprise, some wonder how big Jerry Buss’ targets are. Buss is in Las Vegas for his fight show, by the way, not in Chicago for the Laker-Bull series.

The undercard for the bout:

Tony Tucker (40-1), whose only defeat during an 11-year career was a 1987 decision to Mike Tyson, will fight Orlin Norris (29-3) in a heavyweight bout. Humberto Gonzalez (30-1) of Mexico City, upset by Rolando Pascua of the Philippines in December, will fight countryman Melchor Cob Castro (29-2-4), Castro’s light-flyweight title at stake. Troy Dorsey (11-3-4) will fight Alfred Rangel (22-6) for the vacant International Boxing Federation featherweight championship. . . . The pay-per-view undercard starts at 6 p.m., the main event around 8.

Virgil Hill’s Title Defenses

Date Opponent Result Nov. 21, 1987 Rufino Angulo Unanimous decision April 3, 1988 Jean-Marie Emebe Technical knockout (11) June 6, 1988 Ramzi Hassan Unanimous decision Nov. 11, 1988 Willy Featherstone Technical knockout (10) March 4, 1989 Bobby Czyz Unanimous decision May 27, 1989 Joe Lasisi Technical knockout (7) Oct. 24, 1989 James Kinchen Technical knockout (1) Feb. 25, 1990 David Vedder Unanimous decision July 7, 1990 Tyrone Frazier Unanimous decision Jan. 6, 1991 Mike Peak Unanimous decision

Overall record: 30-0, 18 KO

Note: Hill won WBA title Sept. 5, 1987, with a fifth-round knockout of Leslie Stewart.