Hit Man - Brian Hughes [76]
The events which had thrown Hearns, Kinchen and the WBO together were typical of the complex, internecine world of boxing. Hearns, eager to get back into the ring to dispel any doubts that his crushing loss to Barkley was anything more than a fluke, was supposed to box the Venezuelan veteran Fulgencio Obelmejias for the WBA version of the super-middleweight crown but Obelmejias was forced to pull out with a rib injury. Intrigued by Ray Leonard’s inability to resist the sport’s siren call and his latest comeback against Donny Lalonde, Bob Arum, the show’s promoter, wanted to give credence to a possible Hearns–Leonard rematch and contacted Kinchen, who had spent his career on the fringes of the world’s top ten, to persuade him to accept his tilt at glory by facing Hearns. A Hearns win, Arum reasoned, would get him back on track for a possible money-spinner with Sugar Ray. He then turned his attentions to the WBO. Hearns was now in the unique position of winning his fifth – and the sanctioning body’s first – world title.
At the Las Vegas press conference to announce the fight, the questions about his enduring presence in the sport were the main theme. Hearns stood and politely fielded them all. He admitted that he could understand their perspective, as his rivals such as Hagler and Leonard had bowed out from the cruellest sport. “I am a boxing rarity,” he said. “I love what I am doing and I am not eager to retire from active fighting. It’s exciting and I love the attention. I also like the money too!” He continued, “When I leave boxing, I don’t want people to simply call me Thomas Hearns. I want them to call me ‘The Champ.’” Hearns promised that when he faced Kinchen, they would see a new style. “From this fight, I will no longer fool about in the ring. From the opening bell, I am going to forsake boxing and fancy footwork and stop the feeling-out process. I’m not going to do any boxing again. I’m going to come out and get the job done.”
If that was supposed to send shivers down Kinchen’s spine, it failed. The thirty-one-year-old North American Boxing Federation’s super-middleweight champion had come into this encounter as a late replacement. He had returned from a twelve-round victory over Marvin Mack at Lake Tahoe and been home barely a week when he accepted the fight. He was nonplussed by Hearns’s attitude and asked, “Has Hearns had his morning coffee yet? He seems grouchy.”
Hearns was in a tetchy mood, but James Kinchen was not the source of his ire. His twenty-two-year-old brother Jessie, and his sister Sarah, had been charged with a felony assault resulting from a neighbourhood fracas. The police had alleged that Sarah Hearns had hit a neighbour during a dispute. When the situation threatened to flare up, Jessie Hearns had fired five shots into the air. Although no one was injured, the resulting court case, which saw his siblings cleared, had weighed heavily on Hearns. It was an unnecessary distraction and detracted from the positive image that he had been striving to present. This charm offensive had included a recent visit to a retirement home, where Hearns had asked an eighty-five-year-old widow to dance with him. He also broke camp to host the Boys and Girls Club of America, where he had initiated a day of spirited games. Finally, he completed his annual Hallowe’en visit to the Detroit Beaumont Hospital, where he spent an afternoon charming bedridden children.
Despite the distractions, Hearns was focused on returning to action and beating Kinchen in a convincing manner. He admitted that the Barkley defeat had made him aware of his vulnerability. “I know that the clock is ticking on my career,” he said, “and it’s not the greatest feeling in the world, knowing what might happen in there.” He dismissed any discussion about meeting Leonard in a return encounter after eight years and insisted that he wasn’t thinking beyond Kinchen. “Sugar Ray Leonard is fighting Donny Lalonde three days after me. It stands to reason that if I lose to Kinchen