Hit Man - Brian Hughes [92]
And a few days later, Hearns faced the press at an arranged conference in Detroit and surprised the gathered journalists when he announced that he was not retiring from the sport. He now blamed his performance and defeat on his damaged right hand, which he claimed was an unfortunate legacy from his slugfest with Marvelous Marvin Hagler. “Ever since that fight,” said Hearns, “I’ve fought with an aching right fist which felt like an electric shock going through my hand and up my arm.” He believed that further opportunities to win world honours were attainable if he could fire his punches with full force. He claimed to understand the concerns about continuing but reassured his admirers, “The boxer knows best what he’s got left and I want a seventh world title.”
Others, however, believed that, far from the boxer knowing best, he was often the last person to make a sensible decision about his own future. “For whose benefit does Tommy Hearns fight?” asked Jon Saraceno in USA Today. “Has anybody told you, Tommy, that your speech has become increasingly slurred in recent years? Do you understand that concussive head blows result in cumulative brain damage? Do you realize brain tissue is not regenerative? It takes courage to step off the stage, the kind of ‘want-to’ you displayed in the ring.” Was Hearns suffering from the condition known as pugilistica dementia? Certainly there seemed to be no medical proof and no boxing commission withdrew his licence.
IN THE SUMMER of 1992, Thomas Hearns began preparations to pump up in weight and slim down his management team. The first casualty was the controversial Harold Smith, who had been a mysterious figure in the Hearns camp following the split with Emanuel Steward. Although his duties were never publicly specified or sealed with a contract, he had acted as a go-between with promoters and had handled Hearns’s training logistics. The split was attributed to a series of events that occurred before the defeat to Iran Barkley. Hearns was furious to discover that Smith had negotiated himself a fee with fight promoter Bob Arum for his help in putting the match together.
With Smith gone, trainer Alex Sherer agreed to take an expanded role in the running of Hearns’s career. He handled the negotiations for an October clash with the WBA cruiserweight champion Bobby Czyz and obtained a guarantee for a purse of $1.5 million dollars. He also insisted that Hearns should box twice in tune-up bouts before meeting Czyz and follow the formula that had secured him a historic win over Virgil Hill. Sherer believed that a subsequent nine-month absence from the ring had critically blunted his edge and skewed his timing, leading to the lacklustre display against Barkley.
Just as negotiations looked close to completion, the Czyz fight suddenly collapsed. Hearns attended a charity event in California, where he told the attendees that he was expecting to return to Detroit and sign the waiting contract. Rumours emanating from his camp, however, suggested that Czyz had shocked them by demanding $5 million. This unexpected development was a huge disappointment to Hearns, who was dismayed at Sherer’s inability to secure his ring return. This sparked an irreversible decline in their relationship as his absence from the ring continued. Sherer was keen to build on his profile by working with other boxers in his California base, and he and Hearns eventually agreed to part company in an amicable manner. Alex Sherer would go on to coach Michael Moorer to the IBF heavyweight championship and Jorge Paez, the former featherweight champion, before he succumbed to a lung disease and died at the tragically young age of forty-two, in 1997.
DURING A TWENTY-ONE month absence from the ring, Hearns fathered a baby boy, had an operation to repair the troublesome bones in his right hand and then stunned the boxing world by announcing that he had “made his peace” with Emanuel Steward and would be returning to his Kronk home. He was ready, he said, for his “second