Long Before Calzaghe-Kessler, There Was Leonard-Hearns

Over the past three days alone this desk has been bombarded with no fewer than 30 e-mailed press clippings concerning next Saturday’s events in Wales. The indefatigable publicist Fred Sternburg has cranked it into overdrive mode, showering the world’s boxing writers with reams of propoganda advancing the proposition that the impending meeting of Joe Calzaghe and Mikkel Kessler is the most hotly-anticipated fight of a season replete with intriguing fights -- which it probably is -- and that it is the most significant matchup of undefeated championship claimants since Ali-Frazier I – which it is not.

Indeed, a reasonable argument could be made that it isn’t even the most noteworthy 168-pound unification fight in history. There are some of us who remember that when Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns battled to a draw in Las Vegas 18 years ago, two of the three titles which will be at stake in Cardiff next weekend were on the line – and that two future Hall of Fame boxers were fighting for them.

With the exception of the “minimumweight” [105-pound] division, which came along about the same time, the super-middleweight class was the sanctioning bodies’ most recent creation and was initially considered a bastard stepchild.

The IBF had actually started the 168-ball rolling within a year of its own creation, sanctioning a “world” title fight between journeymen Murray Sutherland and Ernie Singletary back in 1984.

Sutherland, the Scotsman who would gain greater fame as the trainer of Eric (Butterbean) Esch, lost his title on his first defense to the immortal Chong-Pal Park, who kept it for over three years before adding the newly-created WBA title, which he promptly lost to Fulgencio Obelmejias, a man who had already twice been knocked out by Marvin Hagler in middleweight title fights. If super-middleweights weren’t commanding much respect back then, it was with good reason.

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But here’s what the boxing landscape looked like in 1988: In the aftermath of Leonard’s controversial win over Hagler a year earlier, the undisputed title Hagler had so jealously guarded since 1980 was immediately fragmented. Sumbu Kalambay had won the WBA title and then lost it to Mike McCallum. Frank Tate won the IBF title and lost it to Michael Nunn. The WBC portion of the title, which Leonard had won but never defended, was put up for grabs between Hearns and Juan Roldan. Hearns knocked out Roldan, but then was himself knocked out by Iran Barkley.

At this point the WBC and the WBO had yet to recognize the new division, but the opportunity to have Leonard and Hearns fight for their respective titles proved irresistible. Here’s how it happened:

By the summer of ’88 Leonard had grown restive and decided to end his fourth retirement. Having made boxing history by beating Hagler after three years of inactivity, Leonard was determined once again to go where no man had ever gone before. Not only would his November 1988 fight against light-heavyweight champ Donny LaLonde be the first in boxing history in which two world championships were at stake, it would provide Leonard with the opportunity to win his fourth and fifth titles on the same night.

It should be noted here that in persuading LaLonde to fight for the WBC’s first-ever super middleweight title, Leonard had more than history on his mind. In the negotiations for the Hagler fight, Leonard had exacted important concessions in the size of the ring (20 feet), the make of the gloves (Reyes thumb-attached), and the length of the bout (12 rounds), all of which normally might have been considered the champion’s prerogative and all of which worked in Leonard’s favor.

In persuading LaLonde and his manager Dave Wolf to fight for two titles, Leonard effectively brought the Golden Boy much nearer to his own size. When they met that night at Caesars, the light-heavyweight champion weighed 167 pounds. Officially, Leonard weighed 165, mainly because Nevada officials failed to notice that when he mounted the scale still wearing his warmup pants he had a couple of rolls of silver dollars in his pockets.

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LaLonde-Leonard wasn’t the only super-middleweight title fight taking place in Las Vegas that week. Hearns, who had already won titles at welter, super-middle, light-heavy, and middleweight, planned to beat Leonard to the punch by becoming the first man to win five. He was scheduled to fight Obelmejias for the WBA super middleweight title at the Hilton on Nov. 4 –three nights before LaLonde-Leonard.

But a few weeks before the scheduled bout, Obelmejias suffered a rib injury in training and withdrew. When a match was hastily arranged between Hearns and James Kinchen, the WBO agreed to sanction it as its first-ever super middleweight title fight.

Although Hearns controlled the early going that night, in the fourth Kinchen rocked him with a big right hand, and followed it with a left hook that put Hearns on the floor. When he got to his feet it was apparent that Hearns could barely stand.

Hearns’ inability, or unwillingness, to clinch under similar circumstances had cost him dearly in his first against Leonard back in 1981, but in the intervening years Tommy had apparently learned his lesson well. He survived the round only by seizing Kinchen in what we described as a “Motown Death Grip.”

“I was holding him like he was my woman,” Hearns would say afterward.

Mills Lane, who had to keep prying Hearns loose from Kinchen, was not as amused. After numerous warnings, he took a point from Hearns (“the best point he ever spent,” noted Mike O’Hara of the Detroit News), and appeared to be within an eyelash of disqualifying him altogether.

Hearns, in any case, survived the round, and, ultimately, the fight. Although the verdict came in the form of a narrow majority decision (Bill Graham and Cindy Bartin scored it for Hearns by 115-112 and 114-112 scores, while Larry Rosadilla had it even at 114-114), the Hit Man prevailed.

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Three nights later, LaLonde decked Leonard with a short right in the fourth round, and had him bleeding from the nose, but Leonard recovered and was ahead on two of the three scorecards when he finished the Canadian champion with a left hook in the ninth round.

Leonard never defended the light heavyweight title he won that night, but he made it a point to keep the 168-pound championship. When he met Hearns eight months later at Caesars, both the WBC and WBO championships were on the line.

One of boxing’s all-time classics, Leonard-Hearns I had also been a unification bout, matching the WBC and WBA welterweight champions. Eight years and 21 pounds later, they turned out to be more evenly matched than ever.

For the third time in three fights there was a new trainer in the Leonard corner. Morton had departed and was replaced by Jose (Pepe) Correa, who had worked with Leonard in his early amateur days back at the Palmer Park Recreation Center. Dave Jacobs, Ray’s old trainer from Palmer Park, had also rejoined the corner.

At his Palm Beach training camp, Leonard revealed that he and his wife had separated. The breakup had actually come nearly a year earlier, but when Trainer learned that reporters were nosing into the situation he advised Ray to make a statement.

 “I sat down with Ray and told him ‘you probably ought to announce it yourself. It’s the only way you’re going to keep the Washington Post out of your bushes,” said the lawyer.

“It was a mutual decision, and it’s been a very amicable arrangement,” said Trainer, who had handled his share of divorce cases over the years. “If all separations were like this, I’d be broke.”

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Leonard-Hearns II was christened “The War,” and Bob Arum’s publicists handed out combat helmets along with the press kits. Leonard and Hearns appeared together in several cities and exchanged insults as they touted the fight.  At one of them Leonard described Hearns as “a shot fighter,” to which Tommy responded “You more shot than I am.”

According to Trainer, “the biggest mistake Hearns made was agreeing to play cards with Ray on the press tour. Ray suckered him in, and before Tommy knew what had hit him, he’d lost $2,000 playing ‘in-between’ on the Caesars plane.”

Leonard had been guaranteed $14 million, Hearns $11 million, and Arum was predicting that closed-circuit and pay-per-view revenues that might gross between $60 and $80 million, “which,” noted Sports Illustrated’s Pat Putnam, “would send the boxers’ purses soaring to national-debt levels.”

Although the rematch was for two 168-pound titles, the bout contract called for both boxers to weigh no more than 164, with significant financial penalties should either exceed that.

At a press conference four days before the fight, Hearns and Emanual Steward played the ‘S’ card, intimating that Leonard’s new and improved physique suggested that he had some help along the way.

“The way you pumped up, you look like you been taking steroids or something,” said Tommy, and Steward added gravity to the charge when he said that he had been “seriously considering” asking the NSAC to test both boxers for performance-enhancing drugs.

“That’s a cheap shot coming from Emanuel,” said Mike Trainer, who suggested that both camps put up $100,000.

“They can test Ray before the fight, after the fight, and they can take a break after the sixth round and test him then, too,” said Trainer.

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Less than 48 hours before Hearns was to enter the ring against Leonard came word from Detroit that a 19 year-old girl had been shot dead at Tommy’s suburban home in Southfield, and that the Hit Man’s youngest brother Henry had been charged with the murder.

“Mr. Hearns ordered the victim into a room she didn’t want to go to,” Oakland County Prosecutor Lawrence Kozma would describe the shooting at Henry Hearns’ arraignment.

Kozma said that a witness had heard Henry Hearns threaten, “I’m going to blow your brains out.”

“The victim’s brains were in fact blown out,” added the prosecutor.

Arum rushed to the media center to assure the press that he had spoken to Hearns, and that Tommy “had never even considered” pulling out of the fight.

“He said ‘I’ve waited eight years to knock out Sugar Ray Leonard, and nothing will deter me,’” reported the promoter. “He was blocking out everything. The only thing that concerned him was how and when he’d put Leonard on his ass Monday night.”

At the next morning’s weigh-in, Leonard dropped his guard long enough to express his condolences to Hearns.

There had been rumors that Hearns was having trouble with the weight, but on the day of the fight he weighed in at 162 ½, five and a half pounds under the divisional limit and a pound and a half under the contract weight. Had he been over 164 it would have cost him a bundle. Now some were wondering whether he was entitled to a refund.

Leonard, who wore a green, black and red tank top bearing the legend FREE SOUTH AFRICA, weighed 160.

The issue of steroids was never raised at the rules meeting.

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That night Leonard entered the ring wearing candy-striped red-and-white trunks with the word AMANDLA – Zulu for “power” – on the waistband. Hearns wore the gold boxing trunks of the Kronk Boxing team.

The first two rounds proceeded cautiously, but in the third Leonard lowered his head and moved inside to punch to the body, only to be caught by a short right that brought him up short, and another right that slammed against his head and sent him to the floor.

The crowd gasped when Leonard went down, but he appeared to be more embarrassed than hurt. He took a mandatory 8-count from referee Richard Steele and went back to work.

Two rounds later, Leonard caught Hearns with a right to the head and a hook to the chin that sent the Hit Man staggering across the ring until he hit the ropes, where he remained as Leonard punched away, battering him at will for the rest of the stanza.

Although it was a huge round for Leonard (Dalby Shirley scored it 10-8), by its end he looked as weary as Hearns.

After Hearns was warned by Steele for a low blow in the ninth, Leonard delivered his own warning with a punch of his own below the belt.

A Leonard right opened a cut below Hearns’ right eye in the tenth round, but cutman Ralph Citro was able to control the damage between rounds, and in the eleventh, after watching round after round slip away, Hearns surprised Leonard with a massive overhand right.

Ray scurried off in the direction of a neutral corner with Tommy in hot  pursuit, and when he trapped his quarry in the corner, Hearns landed two rights and a left that sent Leonard to the floor again. Ray was all but out (“He was dead,” recalled Tommy) when he was saved by the bell.
As he sat on his stool before the final round, Leonard said later, “After two knockdowns, I didn’t know what the judges were thinking. I figured I’d better give them something else to think about.”

He proceeded to stage a 12th-round rally that reminded many of the 13th in their first fight eight years earlier, battering hearns around the ring. Tommy’s legs could barely support him, and Steele looked to be on the verge of stopping the fight when the final bell intervened.

When Tommy heard the bell, a grin spread across his face, revealing a blood-drenched mouthpiece.

Since Leonard had gone down twice and Hearns not at all, much of the crowd naively assumed that the underdog had won. Many ringside scribes agree. I had Hearns ahead by a single point. Ed Schuyler, scoring for the AP, had Leonard by the same margin. In this atmosphere of suspense and anticipation, Michael Buffer began to read the scorecards.

Jerry Roth scored it 113-112 for Hearns, matching my scorecard.

Tommy Kaczmarek had it 113-112 for Leonard, matching Schuyler’s.

Shirley (mainly by dint of his 2-point round for Leonard in the fifth) had it even at 112-112.

It had been such a close fight that no boxing people seemed to object to the draw, which seemed a just verdict.

“It was a spirited and savage, if technically imperfect match in which the advantage repeatedly changed hands,” I wrote in the next morning’s Boston Herald, “and at its conclusion three judges determined that it had been a fight neither deserved to lose.”

Seven years, seven months, and 27 days had elapsed since their first fight, and if both Leonard and Hearns had slipped a bit with the passage of time, they had fallen to nearly the same place. The War revealed that, if anything, they were more evenly matched than ever.

Much of the crowd, of course, screamed “robbery!” but then the sophistication of the crowd became evident the next morning. Although the draw meant that bets on either fighter were rendered a push, thousands of frans discarded their betting tickets in the belief they had lost. The members of the Caesars cleanup crew the next morning made a fortune.

Hearns didn’t seem overly disturbed by the verdict. Leonard diplomatically observed “I think we both showed what we’re made of.”

The draw allowed both men to keep their titles, and each would make one more super-middleweight title defense. That December, Leonard fought a rubber match of his trilogy with Roberto Duran and retained the WBC title with a unanimous decision; the following April, Hearns scored a near-shutout in outpointing Michael Olajide before abandoning the 168-pound division to campaign again as a light heavyweight.

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No American has ever held either title since.

Following Leonard’s abdication, the WBC title has been owned by a collection comprising four Brits, three Italians, two South Africans, two Canadians, a South African and a German.

And since Hearns gave it up in 1990, the WBO title has never left the British Isles. Chris Eubank won the vacant championship via a majority decision over Michael Watson and defended it 14 times before losing it to Steve Collins in 1995. Collins defended it seven times before retiring in 1997. Calzaghe then beat Eubank for the vacant title and has never looked back.

James Toney  and Roy Jones did have brief flirtations with the IBF 168-pound title, but for the most part US boxers who fought at the weight class have been a collection of Byron Mitchells, Charles Brewers, and Frankie Lileses, not household names even in their own households, which might help to explain why we have been so slow to warm to super middleweights in general and Calzaghe in particular. (Of those 30 clips Sternberg sent out over the past few days, it is probably worth noting that 23 of them were authored by Brits.)

Calzaghe-Kessler is a huge fight, no question about it, but Sternburg went a bit overboard this weekend by claiming it would “produce the division’s first-ever undisputed champion.”

“Undisputed” is an increasingly misused term on today’s boxing landscape, but it’s supposed to mean just what it says. It is correct to say that the Calzaghe-Kessler winner will be widely recognized as THE 168-pound champion, but as long as the IBF title belongs to somebody else (Lucien Bute, today) it is patently NOT an undisputed title – no matter what the promoters talk Buffer into calling it.

And, as we’ve seen, even if it were undisputed, it wouldn’t be the first. Since they owned the only 168-pound title then extant, Murray Sutherland and Chong-Pal Park were undisputed. Back then nobody else had a super middleweight title.

Until Leonard and Hearns came along, nobody else even wanted one.

M

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