Hit Man - Brian Hughes [39]
Three months after one of the most talked-about boxing matches of all time, Thomas Hearns started to focus on a comeback fight against Ernie “Grog” Singletary, a grizzled bulldog from Philadelphia who had established his record of twenty-four wins and three defeats whilst campaigning at middleweight. The fight was to take place on the undercard of what would be Muhammad Ali’s last contest, against Trevor Berbick, at the Queen Elizabeth Sports Center in Nassau, Bahamas. Singletary was a tough campaigner who presented problems for any middleweight he faced. Before his meeting with Hearns, he had traded bombs in a war against Frank Fletcher for the United States Boxing Association title, which he had lost in eight fearsome rounds. He had also been to London to take on former middleweight champ Alan Minter in another bitter dispute, which he lost on a decision. Furthering his reputation as a fighter prepared to travel, he had fought in Cape Town against South African prospect Cameron Adams and won on points.
There was some concern in the camp about whether Hearns would be strong enough to campaign as a middleweight. He had been put on a diet requiring him to eat up to four substantial meals a day, including consuming steaks and protein milk shakes in order to help build him up to the middleweight poundage. Singletary had the opposite problem. He was a late substitute for the Mexican Marcos Geraldo, who initially had been deemed the ideal opponent for Hearns on his comeback trail, and the Philadelphian fighter reputedly had to shed nineteen pounds in eleven days to make the weight. “I had to starve myself for the last four days before I fought Hearns,” he later recalled. “I didn’t really have time to feel prepared for the actual fight, and during the fight, I tried to pace myself and take a shot when I had one.”
In truth, he had very few opportunities to take a shot. Hearns, eager to impress, kept him away with a lightning-fast left jab, especially after his eye was cut open from a stray head butt in the opening round. Although the blood flowed down his face like an open tap at times, it was never a significant factor in the bout and his superior technique was enough to establish a wide lead. The robust Singletary occasionally looked dangerous with his wild swings but had to wade in close in order to land a punch on the fleet-footed Hit Man, and usually came second best in the exchanges. In the ninth round, Hearns opened a cut over Singletary’s left eye and later said, “I thought the fight should have been stopped.” He said, “The man couldn’t see and I’m not the type of fighter who will hit a man when he’s helpless.” Hearns won a unanimous decision.
Despite the comfortable win and the boost to his confidence, the fight did create some doubt in Hearns’ sense of his own destiny. He also had to have a large number of stitches inserted in the cut on his head. Before his next assignment, against Marcos Geraldo, another middleweight, he addressed the difficulty of moving up through the weight divisions. Before the Leonard fight he had spoken openly of winning an unprecedented set of titles at welterweight, middleweight and light-heavyweight; now he began to revise these targets. “Weight makes a great difference,” Hearns told reporters, “I finally realized it when I fought Ernie Singletary in the Bahamas. I must have hit him a hundred times with everything I had and I still couldn