Hit Man - Brian Hughes [88]
Following his tune-up contests, Hearns exiled himself to Southern California, renting a house in Santa Monica. He used the Quake City gym as a training base for the latest chapter in his colourful career, and invited Detroit News boxing correspondent Mike O’Hara to his new home to discuss the changes. “It feels great being my own manager,” Hearns told him. “It is a relief to know where everything is coming from and know where it is going.” His entourage was remarkably similar to his old Kronk crowd and included the former world welterweight champion Milton McCrory, Hearns’s younger brother Billy, and camp aides such as Arthel “Bam Bam” Lawhorne, another former Kronk teammate. Hearns said that their company helped but confessed that he hankered after Detroit. Whilst he accepted that he would never again wear the Kronk colours, he admitted that he missed training there with all of his friends. When he had met Emanuel Steward at the Mike Tyson versus Razor Ruddock bout in Las Vegas, he had approached him and tried to embrace him, but Steward refused to reciprocate his show of friendship. He extended an olive branch by admitting, “I regret the bitterness and the after-effects between me and Emanuel. It was not called for.” He reminded him, “Together, we made each other a lot of money but we also had a lot of fun; a lot of cherished moments.” But he was already looking to the future, not the past.
17 THE LIGHT-HEAVIES
VIRGIL HILL RETURNED home to North Dakota from the 1984 Los Angeles Olympic Games clutching a silver medal. He had narrowly lost to Korean Joon Sup Shin in the middleweight division final and, under normal circumstances, his medal success would have heralded a surge of interest from managers, promoters and the public. But following the welter of gold medals that had been captured by his countrymen at the same Games, Hill’s silver failed to impress. As a consequence, he did not receive the bonuses and lucrative sponsorship and promotion of his more decorated teammates when he decided to turn professional.
Immediate evidence of this came on his debut, in November 1984, at the fabled Madison Square Garden, New York. Whilst the gold medal winners, including Mark Breland, Pernell Whittaker and Meldrick Taylor, were earning purses of around $40,000 for their early pro contests, Hill earned just $5,000 for beating Arthur Wright in the second round. He knew that his route to the top would be a long one.
Initially, he was promoted by Dan Duva’s Main Events organisation, which had signed several Olympians. This exacerbated Hill’s feelings of frustration, as he was not promoted with the level of intensity that he felt he merited compared to his more illustrious stablemates. He soon left and signed with Bob Arum’s Top Rank, where he continued to improve and learn his trade. He remained unbeaten until he finally got a tilt at world honours, challenging Leslie Stewart for the WBA light-heavyweight crown in September 1987. Hill delivered the finest performance of his career against the Jamaican, destroying him in four one-sided rounds.
Once considered as one of the dullest divisions in boxing, the light-heavyweight ranks enjoyed a renaissance as Hill, Michael Moorer, Prince Charles Williams and Dennis Andries each held separate versions of the world crown. Hill extended his record to thirty consecutive wins, with eighteen early endings and eleven successful title defences, before he faced Hearns. Hill admitted that Hearns was a fight that interested him more than any other and took precedence over a match with Moorer to establish the division’s premier