What Makes The Hitman A Legend?

On October twenty ninth, nineteen seventy eight, was a day that changed boxing history where Tommy the Hitman Hearns made history becoming the first fighter to win world titles in four different weight classes by beating Juan Domingo Rodin in a four round knockout, giving him the middleweight title and showing his true greatness in the ring. Today, we're going to dive into Tommy Hearns and oh he got to win these four titles and broke down how people are able to win titles in different classes today on Daily Sports History. Welcome to Daily Sports History. I'm Ethan Rees, your guide as you daily learn about sports history, increasing your sports knowledge. And today's trivia question is how many knockouts did Tommy Hearn's have in his boxing career. So Tommy grew up in Tennessee and was the youngest of three children from his mother's first marriage and her second marriage had it six more kids until they moved the family up to Detroit, Michigan, where Hearns got into boxing and had an amateur record won one hundred and fifty five fights and only lost eight and he won the National Amateur Athletic Union Lightweight Championship in nineteen seventy seven and won the National Goal Glove Lightweight Championship. That same year, he won the national the National Gold Glove Championship, So he was quickly rocketing up the boxing world and turned pro following his Goal Glove win and his first fight was at November twenty fifth, nineteen seventy seven against Jerome Hill, who he knocked out in the second round, and he continued this streak. He got the nickname Hitman as he would knock out so many opponents. He knocked out the first seventeen opponents he faced professionally, and in nineteen eighty he would win the USBA title beating Angel Espadida, and he would win his first WBA title that same year, facing off against Jose Juvez, who had a four year run as the title holder, and he knocked him out in the second round and Hearns was voted Fighter of the Year by Ring Magazine that same year. Then in nineteen eighty one, having a perfect record, he was set to fight Sugar Ray Leonard for the World welterweight title to maintain the world wetterweight title. This was one of the biggest fights at the time, and it was a unique fight because it wasn't against just the heavyweights. It was the welterweights. In the nineteen sixties and seventies were dominated by heavyweight competition led by Muhammad Ali, but this was a different kind of fight and him and Sugar Ray went toe to toe and he lost his very first fight by technical knockout in the fourteenth round, lose his welterweight title, but he would come back the next year after winning three fights to fight Wilford Benenez for the middleweight title. Now we're talking about weight classes, and it can get a little confusing with the different weight classes. So the lightest weight class is flyweight, which is one hundred to one one twelve, and then there's bantaweight, featherweight, lightweight, welterweight, middle weight, light heavyweight, and heavyweight, and heavyweight is anything above two hundred pounds. Now, there have been some other weight classes that are kind of tweener weight classes that have been adopted as well, but really these weight classes are meant to keep the fights fair. You know, if you're going against someone that's much bigger than you, chances are the fight isn't going to be a fair fight. You could be a better skill fighter and win a fight. Technically, a featherweight the lights weight class could beat a heavyweight, but does it seem fair? This makes the fights more fair, more enjoyable, and Thomas was fighting in multiple weight classes and he would go he would fight between the weights of one forty and one seventy five, which there are multiple weight classes in between there as well as tweener weight classes. So after losing the sugar rate, he moved up to the super welterweight class and won the WBC title there, beating Wilford Vannines, giving him his second weight class title for the WBC, winning the light middleweight title, and You'd go on to defend this title for multiple years until nineteen eighty five when he lost to Marvin Hagler in a knockout in the third round, But he would come back the next fight to win the middleweight title for the NABF from James Souler, and he would continue to move up. In nineteen eighty seven, he would win the WBC light heavyweight title against Dennis Andres in a ten round technical knockout, and so in October he had to decide whether he wanted to keep the light heavyweight title or drop down to try to capture the middleweight title. Facing off against the number two fighter one Rodin Now, the fight opened up and Rodin actually was an aggressive fighter and he threw some powerful punches at Hearns, though Hearns was able to fight this off, and Hearns was able to land a three punch combination just as the round ended to give him the win for that round. In the second round, Hearns continued his dominance even though Rodin tried to be aggressive. Hearns was able to counter with the left hook that took Rodin down to the canvas for the third time, and he was continuously getting knocked down by Hearns, and by the fourth round, Hearns was able to land across across Wan's face, knocking him down to the canvas for the final time, giving the knockout victory to Hearns as he won his fourth different weight class title, becoming the first boxer to ever do so, making him a unique kind of fighter, and he would actually go on to win even more different fights, as he would go on to win a total of five different weight classes in his time. But he wasn't the only one sure Ray was able to accomplish this feat a year later, and other greats as Roy Jones Junior has seven, Floyd Mayweather had eight, and Manny Pacquiel had nine. And it's a unique experience. As you know, like I said before, heavyweights dominated in the three nineteen eighties, and if you're a heavyweight, you're not going to go down as much. But if you're a lighter fighter, it's easier to go up in weight class then go down. And so you can jump through these weight classes because there's not a whole lot of weight actually differences between some of these classes, so you can jump from one to one, and it really makes it a unique experience. And Thomas would continue his greatness and finish with the career record of sixty one and five with one draw to Sugar Ray Leonard later in his career, and he won forty eight of those fights by a knockout, giving him a great knockout percentage for his fights. He would retire in two thousand, but make a comeback in two thousand and five in two thousand and six, and Fisherly retire after that, and Hearns is still a fixture at memorabilia conferences and things like that he had, so he's still around the boxing world a little bit, but unfortunately he got into debt with the IRS and lost a lot of what he had built up, which is a sad thing to see. But he is still a part of the boxing community and still around to this day and is a fixture in the Detroit sports scene. And if you want to get more into boxing, check out the box Hard podcasts where Joey Kostman and fast Eddie Chambers dive into all that goes on into boxing, from boxing history to what's going on today, so you can get your boxing fix. And if you enjoyed today's episode, please leave us a review wherever you're listening, and if you tell us a topic you want us to cover, leave your name and the topic in the review and we'll get that done just for you. And today's trivia question is how many knockouts did Tommy Hearns have in his boxing career And the answer is he had forty eight knockouts out of his sixty one career wins, which is why he had the nickname hip Man.