Max Kellerman

Tommy Hearns, well, as close to unbeatable a fighter as you could possibly imagine.

Sugar Ray Leonard somehow figured out a way to get it done in a fight he was losing.

Well, in the fight, switch gears five times.

I remember before that fight reading in a magazine, Emanuel Stewart, who's Tommy Hearns' trainer at the time, talking about how Dundee was saying, Angela Dundee, Leonard's trainer, saying this is how, why Leonard's going to win.

And Emanuel saying this is why Tommy Hearns is going to win.

And I was a big Leonard fan as a kid too.

And when I was done reading what Emmanuel said, I was so scared.

He said, it's going to feel like Sugar Ray Leonard is in a tank and it's just filling up with water.

And I thought to myself, that's exactly what this is like.

Who could outbox you because he had a 78 inch reach and could box and could jab.

And as an amateur, wasn't a puncher.

Leonard had hurt him in the body with that left hook in the fifth round.

I'm happy for that Tommy now, in retrospect, at the time, it was like, well, he lost to Leonard, then he lost to Hagler.

But I think as time has passed, his position all time, he's seen as other than Sugar Ray Robbins and Sugar Ray Leonard, he's the greatest welterweight ever probably.

He can throw uppercuts.

100%.

And he showed a lot of heart getting off the canvas and finishing the job.

But he was always a talented guy.

He just was never really motivated properly.

I knew that the thing about knowing you for a while and knowing Rich for a while is that