BOXING / EARL GUSTKEY : Hearns Still Has Something to Crow About

OK, pass that crow pie. We are ready.

We suggested three years ago that Thomas Hearns was finished as a big-time fighter. This was in November of 1988, after Hearns had stumbled his way to a split decision over James Kinchen, and five months after Iran Barkley had stopped him in three rounds.

I approached his promoter at the time, Bob Arum, the morning after the Kinchen fight and asked: “Does this just about finish Hearns as a marquee fighter?”

Arum looked at me as if I had gone insane.

“What are you, crazy? “ he said. “Remember one thing, he’s still Tommy Hearns .”

Temporary insanity, I guess. I had forgotten--in boxing, it is the name that matters, not ability. They can knock you out, but they can’t take away your name recognition.

Hearns came back with a solid effort against Sugar Ray Leonard two years ago and got a draw in a fight he probably won. But he seemed to have regressed again when he defeated Michael Olajide 14 months ago.

And so when the Hearns-Virgil Hill match was announced, it seemed to me an easy pick. Hill wins every round, I told anyone who asked.

But on what in many ways was his greatest night Monday at Caesars Palace, the Detroit Hit Man out-boxed a boxer, out-countered a counter-puncher and won, as a 4-1 underdog, another championship.

Hill, Hearns showed us, is strictly a counter-puncher who cannot, or will not, challenge a puncher. Hill was unbeaten for seven years (30-0) and had defended his light-heavyweight title 10 times.

But all previous challengers were pretenders. On Monday night, Hearns was the real thing.

Hearns and his trainer, Alex Sherer, concocted a strategy that froze Hill in his tracks for most of the 12 rounds. He fought a counter-puncher’s fight, which slowed the pace to one more favorable to Hearns.

They are talking about a November or December rematch, since there aren’t any other light-heavyweights out there who could bring more money to the table than Hill.

But some who have known Hearns for years hope he will decide to make his remarkable victory the Hit Man’s final act. He has now boxed for more than half of his 32 years, and he sometimes speaks with slurred speech.

But in the meantime, we will try to remember: It’s the name in this sport, not the skill level. Pass the salt and pepper, please.

Longtime Las Vegas boxing figure Johnny Tocco says his old pal Larry Holmes wants a fight with another golden oldie, George Foreman.

The paunchy Holmes recently had a comeback fight in Florida and told Tocco he has his promoter trying to get a deal with Foreman.

Holmes was supposed to have been well-heeled financially when he retired for the second time after Mike Tyson beat him in 1988. His trainer then, Richie Giachetti, spoke of “stacks” of bank CDs and tax-free municipals in Holmes’ bank vault.

But according to Tocco, the stack may be getting low.

“When I asked him why he was still fighting, Larry just told me: ‘I got more going out than coming in,’ ” Tocco said. “He said two businesses in his hometown (Easton, Pa.) weren’t doing so good.”

Two new books are worthy of inclusion in anyone’s boxing library.

“In the Corner,” by Dave Anderson, is a breezy, highly readable package of prominent trainers, discussing their craft.

Here is Ray Arcel, 92, talking about Larry Holmes: “I kept telling Larry, ‘You’re one of the best heavyweight boxers I ever saw. Jack Sharkey was the best heavyweight boxer I ever saw, and I compare you with him. You’ve got what most of these bums don’t have. You have a left hand.’ I don’t care where you go, you’ll never see a better fight than Larry had with Ken Norton in 1978. . . . Larry won it with his jab and his heart.”

Thomas Hauser’s “Muhammad Ali, His Life and Times,” is written script-style, with first-person accounts from virtually everyone who had contact with Ali in his boxing life.

It’s all there, from the day in 1954 when, as a 12-year-old, he showed up at a Louisville boxing gym in tears, because his bicycle had been stolen.

Along the way, Hauser details Ali’s conversion to the Muslim faith and finishes with his last, sad battles, with Larry Holmes and Trevor Berbick, and with his illness, parkinsonism.

Boxing Notes

Monday’s Virgilio Openio-Pablo Valenzuela main event at the Forum replaces Raul Perez vs. Alberto Martinez, which was to have been Perez’s debut at super-bantamweight--until he caught a cold this week. . . . Sources say a major reshuffling is about to dislodge some members of the California Athletic Commission. Word is two commissioners appointed by former Governor George Deukmejian but never confirmed will be replaced by two commissioners to be appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson, and that a third commissioner, Raoul Silva of Garden Grove, will not be reappointed when his term expires in July. Further, it has also been learned that one of the new appointees will probably be Dr. Robert Karns of Los Angeles, presently a state ringside physician. . . . Mark Gastineau, former all-pro defensive end for the New York Jets, will make his pro boxing debut tonight in Salem, Va., when he meets Derrick Dukes (2-1) in a four-rounder. Gastineau, 34, has been training to box, off and on, for the last two years. . . . Referee Mills Lane, reminding Thomas Hearns in the fighter’s dressing room before the Hearns-Hill fight Monday night that Hearns had held not only James Kinchen in a fight Lane worked in 1989, but Lane himself: “If you do that again, it could cost you the fight, my friend.” . . . Lost in the outcry over the disputed-decision victory in the Victor Rabanales-Greg Richardson Forum main event two weeks ago was the impressive 10-round victory by super-lightweight David Kamau of the Dame Boxing Club over Memo Cruz. Kamau seemed to reach world-class status with the victory. He is 13-0.