{"id":430911,"date":"2026-02-17T19:41:06","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:41:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/430911\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T19:41:06","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T19:41:06","slug":"tommy-hearns-names-the-hardest-puncher-he-ever-faced-he-was-different-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/430911\/","title":{"rendered":"Tommy Hearns names the hardest puncher he ever faced: “He was different class”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tommy Hearns faced each of his fellow four kings \u2013 Sugar Ray Leonard<\/a>, Roberto Duran<\/a> and Marvin Hagler<\/a> \u2013 during his 67-fight professional career, but one of them was on another level when it came to punching power.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Hitman\u2019 was considered a monstrous puncher himself, scoring 48 stoppages in 61 victories, before ending his prolific campaign as a five-division world champion.<\/p>\n

Down at welter and super-welterweight, the American boasted a significant height and reach advantage over the majority of his opponents, including Leonard and Duran.<\/p>\n

Against Leonard, though, Hearns suffered a 14th-round stoppage defeat<\/a> in 1981, albeit in a closely-fought battle, before rematching his rival at super-middleweight in 1989.<\/p>\n

On that occasion, many felt Hearns was unfortunate to come away with a draw, though he would nonetheless claim the WBO title at 168lbs in his following outing.<\/p>\n

His encounter with Duran, meanwhile, came in 1984, when the knockout specialist orchestrated a second-round finish to retain his WBC super-welterweight title.<\/p>\n

But despite Duran \u2013 who supposedly once knocked out a horse \u2013 being known as \u2018Hands of Stone\u2019, it was actually Hagler who gave Hearns a sterner test in the power department.<\/p>\n

The pair collided in a thrilling three-round middleweight contest<\/a> in 1985, with Hagler ultimately emerging from their iconic battle as the unified world champion.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Marko Boxing<\/a> nearly four decades later, Hearns still regards \u2018Marvelous\u2019 as the most formidable puncher he ever came up against.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarvin Hagler was [in] a different class [to] Roberto Duran. I think Marvin was the hardest puncher [I fought].\u201d<\/p>\n

Given that Hagler was a natural middleweight, whereas Duran typically campaigned in the lower divisions, it is perhaps unsurprising that Hearns arrived at this conclusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tommy Hearns faced each of his fellow four kings \u2013 Sugar Ray Leonard, Roberto Duran and Marvin Hagler…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":430912,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-430911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430911","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=430911"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430911\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/430912"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}