Hit Man - Brian Hughes [23]
A thunderstorm followed by a heavy downpour cleared the muggy air on the morning of the fight but the electricity in the city remained. Hearns’s fight plan was to back up Cuevas, something few opponents had ever been able to do, and to land his punches first. Cuevas, however, was confident: “No-one can ever knock me out,” he bragged. But his Mexican handlers feared that his hotheadedness would lead him into a punching war with Hearns, and that could leave him open to shots from his longer-limbed opponent. Defence was not Pipino’s strong suit.
So it proved. And after just five minutes and thirty-nine seconds of concentrated violence, Hearns was crowned king of the world. The lede of Boxing News reporter Graham Houston said it all:
Turning in a awesome display of two-handed punching, Thomas Hearns blasted his way to the WBA welterweight title by overwhelming Mexican Pipino Cuevas in two totally one-sided rounds before a wildly-excited home crowd of around 14,000 at the Riverside Joe Louis Arena.
The scenes of enthusiasm that greeted Hearns’ victory were the most frenzied I have seen anywhere. Spectators were standing on chairs all around the ringside section, shouting, jumping up and down and thrusting clenched fists in the air while an exulted Hearns grabbed the ring mike and yelled, “I’m the champion – you’d better believe it.”
Observers compared his dismantling of Cuevas to Joe Louis’s famous destruction of the German Max Schmeling back in 1936. “Hearns,” admitted a chastened Cuevas afterwards, “is too tall and too long to be a welter.”
THANKS PARTLY TO Harold Smith, boxing had made Hearns wealthy, and the first people he looked after were his family. He bought and furnished a ranch home in a fashionable northwest Detroit neighbourhood for his mother and siblings, showered Lois with jewellery and bought her a Cadillac, complete with driver as she didn’t drive. For himself there was a string of luxury cars – a Rolls Royce, a black Corvette – and a palatial home with a grand piano. He always dressed sharp.
Still, leaving Helen Street provoked a burst of nostalgia. Hearns told one interviewer how he drove around his old neighbourhood and caught up with some old friends. “I still think back to the old days, when I was living on the east side. When I was not in training, I would often play basketball and the fruit machines with my friends. I know that when I was with them, I can relax and speak my mind.” When reporters told Emanuel Steward about Tommy’s recollections, he smiled and said this was important for his progression as a fighter. “His training camp entourage is large but that is because of the number of Kronk fighters and trainers. But the glitterati that surrounded other fighters are not present with him. It is a working camp, not an ego trip. Thomas still surrounds himself with the same people, the same old buddies. He knows that it’s very important to stay close to reality.”
Hearns still struggled in public; he was shy and gauche yet fighting to overcome it. He attempted to explain his personal philosophy in an interview with Sports Illustrated’s Bob Ottum: “You know what it is? Man, it’s like life is one big chance. Look. You could get mugged, you could get cut or robbed today. So if you’re going to do anything in life, you got to take the chance, man. You got to take it, and if you’re fighting, you got to put some hurl on him. I look forward to the, you know, the combat. It’s the chance.” It was a view conditioned both by his ghetto upbringing and by his strong sense of ambition. When Tommy saw “the chance,” he was going to hold nothing back.
6 CHAMPION
ON SATURDAY, 6 December, Thomas Hearns maintained the furious pace which characterised his career and stepped back into the ring to defend his crown against Luis Primera, a thirty-year-old Venezuelan, in the Joe Louis Arena. Primera was on an unbeaten roll of fifteen fights. He looked suitably mean and tough and gave the impression that he had lived a colourful life. Although he spoke no