{"id":905414,"date":"2026-09-22T14:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T14:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/905414\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T14:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T14:12:11","slug":"thomas-hearns-says-one-fighter-was-even-better-than-the-rest-of-the-four-kings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/905414\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Hearns Says One Fighter Was Even Better Than The Rest Of The Four Kings"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thomas \u2018The Hitman\u2019 Hearns<\/a> has named the fighter that he believes was even better than each of \u2018The Four Kings\u2019 in a surprising admission.<\/p>\n

Hearns is widely considered to be one of the greatest fighters in the history of boxing<\/a>, proving his credentials on numerous occasions during his glittering professional career which began back in 1977 and continued all the way until 2006.<\/p>\n

The Tennessee-native cemented his place in boxing history when he became the first fighter to win world titles in five separate divisions, ranging from welterweight to light-heavyweight.<\/p>\n

He found the majority of his success during the 1980s where he became a member of boxing\u2019s \u2018Four Kings\u2019 alongside former rivals Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Sugar Ray Leonard and Roberto Duran. <\/a><\/p>\n

In a feature with The Ring Magazine<\/a>, Hearns made no mistake in naming Puerto Rican great Wilfred Benitez as the best fighter he faced during his career, overlooking Leonard, Duran and Hagler in a shock statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cBenitez: I would say Wilfred Benitez was very good. He was slick and very crafty. I like Benitez\u2019s craft. He moved well and fights all around the ring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hearns got the better of Benitez when their paths crossed back in December 1982, defeating the three-weight world champion via majority decision to capture the WBC world super-welterweight title at the Superdome in New Orleans.<\/p>\n

Benitez would go on to announce his retirement from the sport eight years after he was defeated by Hearns, walking away from boxing with an impressive record of 53-8-1 and a legacy-defining victory over Roberto Duran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas \u2018The Hitman\u2019 Hearns has named the fighter that he believes was even better than each of \u2018The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":905415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-905414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905414","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=905414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}