{"id":352815,"date":"2025-12-18T07:36:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-18T07:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352815\/"},"modified":"2025-12-18T07:36:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-18T07:36:08","slug":"thomas-hearns-once-seriously-considered-moving-up-to-face-ferocious-heavyweight-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/352815\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Hearns once seriously considered moving up to face ferocious heavyweight champion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The frightening punch power of Thomas Hearns flattened opponents across multiple weight divisions \u2014 but could it ever have carried to heavyweight?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/features\/top-5-wins-for-thomas-hearns\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hearns is rightly remembered as one of the \u201cFour Kings\u201d of the 1980s<\/a>, alongside Roberto Duran, Marvin Hagler and Sugar Ray Leonard. Yet his achievements were not solely defined by those iconic rivalries.<\/p>\n<p>Either side of his memorable battles with fellow boxing royalty, \u2018The Hitman\u2019 collected world titles and unleashed his devastating knockout power. Then, in the summer of 1991 \u2014 the same year he captured the WBA light-heavyweight title with a superb win over Virgil Hill \u2014 Hearns began to flirt with an idea that was equal parts spectacular and alarming: a fight with Mike Tyson.<\/p>\n<p>Even before defeating Hill, there had been talk of Hearns moving up to cruiserweight to challenge Bobby Czyz for the WBA title. But the prospect of Tyson, who was attempting a comeback after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/51438071\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">losing the undisputed heavyweight championship to James \u201cBuster\u201d Douglas<\/a> in 1990, captured the imagination far more.<\/p>\n<p>At 32 years of age, Hearns explained his thinking to the media.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m walking around at 182 pounds right now, so I can get near enough to 200 pounds. If Tyson comes down to 200 and trains the way he did for Buster Douglas, I\u2019d fight him in a minute. Everybody wants a piece of him now.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Tyson had weighed 231lbs for the Douglas defeat but rededicated himself afterwards, trimming down to around 217lbs for his next four victories before his incarceration in March 1992.<\/p>\n<p>Whether Hearns was entirely serious or simply entertaining the idea, he was ultimately talked out of the move by long-time trainer Emanuel Steward. Hearns would go on to fight a further 13 times, finally calling time on his career in February 2006 with a 10-round victory over Shannon Landberg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The frightening punch power of Thomas Hearns flattened opponents across multiple weight divisions \u2014 but could it ever&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-352815","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=352815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}