{"id":737635,"date":"2026-08-14T09:54:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/737635\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T09:54:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T09:54:11","slug":"thomas-hearns-says-he-came-close-to-challenging-legendary-heavyweight-champion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/737635\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Hearns Says He Came Close To Challenging Legendary Heavyweight Champion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.secondsout.com\/topic\/thomas-hearns\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Thomas \u2018The Hitman\u2019 Hearns<\/a> once revealed that he came very close to locking horns with a legend of the heavyweight division.<\/p>\n<p>Hearns had an outstanding professional career of his own which saw him become the first fighter in the history of boxing to win world titles in five weight classes.<\/p>\n<p>The majority of his success came during the 1980s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.secondsout.com\/news\/hearns-on-worst-fighter-of-the-four-kings\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">when he earned a spot amongst \u2018The Four Kings\u2019<\/a> alongside former rivals and fellow icons Roberto Duran, Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler.<\/p>\n<p>Despite not fighting at a division higher than cruiserweight, Hearns once claimed that he was open to a potential showdown with none other than former undisputed heavyweight champion Mike Tyson.<\/p>\n<p>In a resurfaced feature with the <a href=\"https:\/\/eu.freep.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Detroit Free Press<\/a>, \u2018The Hitman\u2019 was said to have called out the once-formidable Tyson for a monumental clash during the early 1990s.<\/p>\n<p>\u201dI\u2019m a walking-around 182 pounds right now, so I can get near enough to 200. If Tyson will come down to 200 and train the way he did for Buster Douglas, I\u2019d fight him in a minute. Everybody wants a piece of him now.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u2018Iron Mike\u2019 is often credited with being one of the greatest heavyweights of all time, proving his credentials on a number of occasions throughout the course of his storied career.<\/p>\n<p>Tyson\u2019s greatest achievement took place back in 1986 <a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/on-this-day-20-year-old-mike-tyson-savages-trevor-berbick-to-begin-reign-of-terror\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">when he sensationally knocked out countryman Trevor Berbick to capture the WBC world title<\/a> and become the youngest ever world heavyweight champion, a record that still remains unbroken to this very day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas \u2018The Hitman\u2019 Hearns once revealed that he came very close to locking horns with a legend of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":737636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-737635","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\/737635","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=737635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/737636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}