Hit Man - Brian Hughes [74]
As the fight date drew near, Barkley seemed to grow in confidence. He enjoyed regaling sportswriters with his life story and telling how Yvonne had taught him how to fight to survive in their Bronx neighbourhood. She would take him to a New York gym despite his protestations to stay at home and play on his drum kit. He had eventually turned professional in 1982 and had fought for six years without troubling the radars of the sport’s big hitters. When he had lost to the unranked Sanderline Williams, the boxing establishment prepared to write him off. He was brought in to face Michael Olajide to act as a stepping stone for the Canadian’s ascent to the super-middleweight division. Against the odds, he knocked out Olajide in five rounds and it was this victory which had earned him his shot at Hearns. Barkley could be hit and he could be floored but, in the words of his manager, Vinnie Ferguson, “He gets up like a wounded gorilla.” He acknowledged that he was stepping up in class but was ready for the fray. “I expect Hearns will be dangerous and come to take me out,” he said. “That’s fine. I will be waiting and I’ll hit him with a shot of my own. If his legs go, then it’s goodnight Tommy Hearns.”
Hearns was the 4-1 favourite. He had won forty-five of his forty-seven bouts and was twenty-nine years old, an age when many champions are reaching their peak. Yet some observers felt he was nearing the end of the road, and that sooner rather than later, someone – though perhaps not the erratic, easy-to-hit Barkley – would end his middleweight reign. Eight and a half thousand spectators thronged to the Hilton Centre to see whether Barkley could make good on his bold talk.
Hearns set the tone. He left his corner in a confident mood, standing tall and using a string of head feints which indicated his respect for the Blade’s lunging attacks. When they invariably came, he countered to the body before suddenly switching target and aiming several right hands to his opponent’s head. Hearns looked commanding, staying high on his toes and remaining at long range, forcing Barkley to throw huge, signposted haymakers.
The second round quickly fell into the same pattern and Detroit’s celebrated son used every inch of his ringcraft to crash home a number of rapier punches, which started to leave their mark in the tiny swellings and red blotches that appeared beneath both of Barkley’s eyes. The challenger’s mouth started to fill with blood from a torn lip, and his increasing desperation was evident when referee Richard Steele warned him to keep his lunging punches up higher. When the bell tolled to end the second session, Dr Donald Romero from the Nevada State Athletic Commission ventured to Barkley’s corner to inspect his injuries and determine whether he could continue. Eddie Aliano, his cornerman, managed to stem the bleeding and reassured Dr Romero that he could come out for the next round.
“You gotta go for it,” urged his co-trainer, Al Bolden. “You gotta street fight. You gotta do it South Bronx street style.”
Both men left their stools to start the third round with an air of inevitability. Hearns countered Barkley’s wild lunge before being charged into the ropes, where he again threw a fluid combination of lefts and rights with a sting enough to repel the New Yorker and throw him off balance. Hearns connected with two more stinging right hands, while Barkley’s replies found only fresh air. Hearns sensed the end was near and piled on the pressure. A right-left combination followed by a double left hook to the body obliged Barkley to grab hold of his tormentor to gain some respite.
Hearns was in total control, and with this came complacency. He often carried his left hand low, allowing him to shoot his jab up from the hip, but it made him vulnerable to a fast hook over the top. As he looked to pick his shots in the centre of the ring, Barkley suddenly threw an arcing right which landed square on Hearns’ unguarded chin. The impact of the punch seemed to stop time; one sportswriter later