Hit Man - Brian Hughes [61]
12 BACK IN THE MIX
HEARNS TOOK TIME out to recover after his epic contest with Hagler and to allow his broken hand to heal. It was eleven months before he finally felt ready to return to the ring. He was desperate for a return match against his conqueror and his desire was shared by the global audience who longed to see a repeat of their classic pairing. Bob Arum resisted these calls and insisted that there was little merit in rematches. Instead, he suggested Hearns prove that he deserved one. Arum pieced together a show which would whet the public’s appetite by featuring both Hearns and Hagler on the same card and allowing them to judge if the Detroit man justified a return. Hagler was matched against the tough, hard-punching Ugandan John “The Beast” Mugabi and Hearns was scheduled to fight the highly respected James “Black Gold” Shuler, the leading contender for Hagler’s undisputed middleweight championship. Shuler was unbeaten in his twenty-two contests, stopping sixteen of his opponents. Their twelve-rounder would be both a North American Boxing Federation middleweight title fight and a WBC final eliminator, with the winner becoming the next in line to challenge Hagler. As a further incentive, Arum offered Hearns a $500,000 bonus if he disposed of Shuler within six rounds.
The twenty-six-year-old Shuler hailed from Philadelphia and had been a member of the ill-fated 1980 Olympic boxing team which was prevented from competing in Moscow due to Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the games to protest the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Many observers suggested that the 1980 US vintage had the potential to be one of the finest ever Olympic teams and Shuler was one of its leading lights. He had almost quit the sport following the tragedy of 14 March 1980, when a flight of the Lot Polish Airline, carrying members and officials of the US boxing team, had crashed, killing sixty-four passengers, including twenty-two members of the team. Shuler had been due to travel with the team to a European competition but had withdrawn because of illness. He was eventually persuaded to turn professional and made his debut in September of the same year, winning in two rounds before ratcheting up an impressive twenty-two career victories and forging a notable reputation as a silky fighter. As number one contender, Shuler could have refused the elimination bout and still been next in line to challenge Hagler, but he was tempted by a career-best purse of $250,000. Humble and good-hearted, he was extremely popular with his stablemates and was widely recognised as one of the sport’s “good guys.”
The legendary Eddie Futch, who had guided fourteen men to world champion status, was in Shuler’s corner for this contest. Futch paid tribute to Hearns as “one of this decade’s most menacing figures” but was adamant that his latest protégé would upset the 3-1 odds in favour of Hearns and emerge victorious inside the scheduled twelve rounds. “There are quite a few cracks in his armour which have recently been evident,” he said. Futch spent hours coaching Shuler to take away Hearns’ punching power by sliding inside his long reach and working at close quarters. “Hearns needs time and room to deliver his punches,” he told his man. “We won’t give him either.”
Futch, who as a young boxer had lived in the Black Bottom section of Detroit and had regularly sparred with Joe Louis, had left in the early 1950s for Los Angeles, but always maintained that his roots were still deeply embedded in the Motor City. He would regularly meet up with old friends like Luther Burgess and Walter Smith, who had learned their skills in the tiny Brewster gym situated on the east side of Detroit and were