Hit Man - Brian Hughes [31]
When the training camp began in earnest, Hearns and a thirty-strong team of Kronk boxers and officials moved to Michigan’s spectacular Sugar Loaf ski resort, an area of outstanding natural splendour with picturesque mountains overlooking Lake Michigan, which shimmered on the horizon. Hearns was relieved to complete the promotional tour and was delighted to hear how it had paid dividends, especially in Philadelphia, which reported that it had sold every one of its closed-circuit television tickets and was planning to open more theatres. The gleeful promoters were now talking of an astounding $52 million gross for the fight.
Hearns now focussed on the fight itself and asked his sparring partners to simulate Leonard’s style. One of them, his light-welterweight stablemate Dujuan Johnson, who was known as “Mr Excitement,” gave him plenty of problems. They boxed eight three-minute rounds and Johnson soon began to whirl his right arm in the windmill fashion which Leonard had used to dramatic effect on the evening he forced Roberto Duran to quit in New Orleans. The Kronk team encouraged Johnson, much to the chagrin of Hearns, and he repeatedly mimicked Leonard, his wind-milling right hand being followed by a quick, sneaky left jab aimed at Hearns’s head. Eventually, Hearns found an antidote, and as the left jab was cocked the Hit Man delivered a fast jab of his own, which hit Johnson smack on his forehead. The power of the punch drove him back into the ropes. The whoops and hollering from his stablemates made Hearns smile.
One of the more fascinating sideshows to the big fight build-up focused on the two men who would be in the corners on the night: Emanuel Steward and Angelo Dundee. Mike O’Hara, the Detroit News staff writer, declared, “Emanuel Steward stands at the top of the Kronk Empire as a man who is unshakeable in the belief that he can control the course of his fighters, in a business where loyalty lasts no longer than a three-minute round.” He acknowledged that the thirty-seven-year-old Steward’s guidance of Hearns towards the showdown with Leonard “was a masterpiece.”
Steward was more than happy to take the plaudits, and was not slow to blow his own trumpet either. “I take my hat off to Mike Trainer but it’s not a hard job to do when you have a multi-talented gold medal winner like Sugar Ray Leonard,” he said. “I was starting out with a kid called Thomas Hearns, who hardly anybody knew. He was regarded as a good dime-a-dozen fighter. I knew that he was a good kid and he became the champion of the world in just thirty-six months, most importantly he did it with no help from the big consortiums.” This kind of “help” seemed like a dirty word to Steward. “It means selling a fighter’s services to one of the major promoters but Hearns is tied to nobody. If a promoter puts up money, he would want authority and I never want to get into that kind of situation.”
Amidst the swell of praise, Joe Falls, a Detroit journalist who had followed Steward’s and Hearns’s careers from the beginning, wrote an article which offered the rapidly emerging trainer some advice. “Emanuel Steward is a good man but I wish he would stop talking about how much money he has made for Thomas Hearns.” Steward had reacted badly to some caustic remarks by world heavyweight champion Larry Holmes, to the effect that Steward was cheating his fighter out of money. Leonard had made similar remarks in the build-up. Falls cautioned, “He’s got to stop letting people like Holmes get to him with their barbs. Nobody with any real knowledge has ever hinted that Emanuel Steward has been anything but fair with Thomas Hearns or any of his other fighters. He should get himself a publicity man who understands the boxing business and the matter of dealing with the media because this constant