Rewind to the summer of 1991, and all-time great Thomas Hearns was riding another high; the 32-year-old former welterweight, light-middleweight, middleweight, and super-middleweight champion, having won what was actually a second world title up at light heavyweight. And \u201cThe Hitman\u201d was giving some serious thought about moving up to heavyweight, this to challenge\u2026\u2026..Mike Tyson!<\/p>\n
Yes, Hearns actually talked to the media about his desire to fight the former heavyweight king who had recently been beaten in a momentous upset by James \u201cBuster\u201d Douglas. Hearns, who stands 6\u20192\u201d and would have had both height and reach advantages over \u201cIron Mike,\u201d had one stipulation: that Tyson came in no heavier than the 200-pound mark.<\/p>\n
Why Hearns Eyed a Mike Tyson Fight<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m walking around at 182 pounds right now, so I can get near enough to 200 pounds,\u201d Hearns said. \u201cIf 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
It would, of course, be great to be able to obtain actual footage of Hearns saying what he said to the Detroit Free Press back in \u201991, to see if Tommy had a glint in his eye or a grin on his face when he said what he said. Or else, maybe Hearns \u2013 who we all know was utterly fearless in the ring, a warrior who always wanted the biggest and the best fights so as to secure his greatness \u2013 was indeed 100 percent serious.<\/p>\n
In any case, Emanuel Steward, a man who guided Hearns to almost all of his key victories (aside from the \u201991 title win of an upset over Virgil Hill) managed to talked Tommy out of it. And, as special as Hearns was, and as much as Tyson might not have been the force he once was in 1991, this is almost certainly a good thing.<\/p>\n
The Fearless Spirit of Tommy Hearns<\/p>\n
Hearns might have been able to stick around for a couple of rounds, using his awesome jab and keeping Tyson away from him. But surely, Tyson, still lethal in 1991, would have tagged Hearns at some point and would have gotten him out of there.<\/p>\n
But the fact that Hearns even thought about going up to heavyweight to fight anyone, let alone one of the most vicious big men in the history of the sport, really does show you how Hearns was an old-school fighter. One of a kind, even.<\/p>\n
How can you not love Thomas Hearns!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rewind to the summer of 1991, and all-time great Thomas Hearns was riding another high; the 32-year-old former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104412,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-104411","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104411"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104411\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}