Hit Man - Brian Hughes [0]
The Thomas Hearns Story
Brian and Damian Hughes
MILO BOOKS LTD
Brian Hughes MBE
Brian Hughes has been the chief coach at the Collyhurst and Moston Lads Club in north Manchester for over forty-five years. He has produced boxers who have won British, Commonwealth, European and world championships. He has also coached a string of national champions at schoolboy, junior and senior levels, as well as Olympic representatives.
A Manchester United fan, he has written books about some of their greatest figures, including Tommy Taylor, Dennis Violet, Jimmy Murphy and Denis Law, as well as biographies of boxers Sugar Ray Robinson, Willie Pep, Howard Winstone, Jackie Brown, Johnny King and Jock McAvoy. Details of these books are available at www.brianhughesbooks.bravehost.com.
Awarded an MBE in 2000 for his services to boxing and the community, Brian lives in Manchester with his wife Rosemarie. He has three sons, a daughter and two grandsons, Joseph and George.
Damian Hughes
Damian Hughes, Brian’s son, is the founder of change management consultancy LiquidThinker Ltd, helping individuals, teams and industries to achieve success. He is the author of four books: Liquid Thinking, Liquid Leadership, The Survival Guide to Change and The Change Catalyst.
He is a former England schoolboy footballer and Manchester United coach and works as a consultant and sports psychologist for the England and Great Britain rugby league teams and a number of professional sporting clubs. His innovative approach has been praised by Sir Richard Branson, Muhammad Ali, Sir Terry Leahy, Tiger Woods, Jonny Wilkinson and Sir Alex Ferguson.
He lives in Manchester with his wife Geraldine and son George. More information about Damian can be found at www.liquidthinker.com.
Ebook edition published in 20011by Milo Books
Copyright © Brian Hughes and Damian Hughes
All rights reserved.
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CONTENTS
Foreword by Jackie Kallen
Introduction
1 The Defining Moment
2 Detroit
3 The Kronk
4 The Motor City Cobra
5 The Conman
6 Champion
7 Showdown in the Desert
8 Comeback
9 The Boy Wonder
10 The Hit Man Unleashed
11 War
12 Back in the Mix
13 The Hammer
14 The Blade and the Heat
15 Leonard, Part Two
16 General Hearns
17 The Light-Heavies
18 Promo Man
19 Twilight
20 The Legacy
Acknowledgements
FOREWORD
by Jackie Kallen
I AM DELIGHTED to write the foreword for this fascinating book on the boxing career of the charismatic, dynamic and multi-talented Thomas Hearns. As a boxing manager, promoter, and former publicist, I owe my success to the wonderfully hot, smelly, crowded gym in Detroit, Michigan called Kronk which was originally opened in 1920. As a sports writer for a daily newspaper, I first walked into the basement gym in 1978 to write a story on a young Tommy Hearns and I quickly fell in love with the sport and signed on as the Kronk gym publicist. It was a unique experience because during this period, we witnessed the most exciting times in Detroit’s sporting history and Tommy Hearns and Emanuel Steward were at the epicentre.
I cannot recommend a better guide to take you on this journey than Brian Hughes. I first met him in the late 1970s, when he visited the Kronk with a couple of his own English boxers. His appetite to learn about the coaching methods was voracious and prompted Emanuel Steward to offer him a coaching position at Kronk. Instead, he has taken on board all he could about our training methods, techniques and psychology and adapted it to his own stable of champions in England. I trust that you will