{"id":624562,"date":"2026-06-06T14:59:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:59:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/624562\/"},"modified":"2026-06-06T14:59:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T14:59:08","slug":"thomas-hearns-admits-there-was-one-fight-he-wishes-he-couldve-had-before-retirement-i-prayed-for-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/624562\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Hearns admits there was one fight he wishes he could’ve had before retirement: “I prayed for it”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of Thomas Hearns was long, legendary and littered with talent, but there is one fight that \u2018The Motor City Cobra\u2019 prayed for, that he did not get before he hung up the gloves.<\/p>\n

\u2018The Hitman\u2019 debuted in 1977 and fought for a remarkable 29 years, famously sharing the ring with his fellow \u2018Four Kings\u2019; Sugar Ray Leonard<\/a>, Marvelous Marvin Hagler<\/a> and Roberto Duran<\/a>, and becoming boxing\u2019s first five-division world champion.<\/p>\n

The Detroit-based fan-favourite was one of the first to adopt the \u2018Kronk\u2019 style of much-lauded trainer Emanuel Steward<\/a>, and that approach guided Hearns to world honours at welterweight, super-welterweight, middleweight, super-middleweight and light-heavyweight.\u00a0<\/p>\n

However, out of all 67 of his career fights, the most talked about is undeniably Hearns\u2019 three-round shootout with Hagler<\/a>, with the opening round of that bout considered to be the most enthralling round in boxing history.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, in that iconic eight-minute battle, Hearns ultimately came out second best. Speaking to OSP TV<\/a>, \u2018The Hitman\u2019 admitted that he was desperate for a rematch with Hagler, in order to avenge that defeat.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe [Hagler] was a great man. I am not trying to be funny or nothing like that, but I prayed for the opportunity to have another fight with him. I wish I would have had that opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe man had great ability and he showed me, the Thomas Hearns that knocks everybody out, he turned it around. I\u2019m not afraid to say it because the man got my respect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hagler was one of just four men to trump Hearns in his career, joined by Leonard, Iran Barkley and Uriah Grant in that exclusive club.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The r\u00e9sum\u00e9 of Thomas Hearns was long, legendary and littered with talent, but there is one fight that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-624562","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\/624562","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=624562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}