This could go either way. Tommy the greater fighter by far but Benn at 160, if nothing else, could punch like a mule kick. I pick Hearns to get to him first....but the reverse is almost equally possible.
i can't fully predict a hearns win on this. considering the way hearns was stretched by barkely and benn's amazing recuperative power, i can certainly see Benn coming from behind to KO hearns or even an early KO. but then again, hearns was somewhat overconfident against barkely and i can see him outboxing benn and stopping him w/ precision shots in the later rounds.
You've hit on what most miss when discussing Barkley-Hearns...Hearns showed a complete disregard for Barkley and that ended up costing Hearns in that fight. I don't see Hearns being anywhere as careless as he was against a prime Benn as he was against Barkley. Hearns is more skilled, much quicker and punches at least as hard. I don't see much more than a puncher's chance for Benn. Hearns by early to middle rounds KO.
A boxer who was basically less everything than Tommy Hearns, stopped Benn with a jab. Tommy gets Nigel out of there in 2 or 3 rounds.
Good call, X. I was thinking the same. Hearns hurts and drops Benn, early. Benn rallies somewhat, but then Hearns regains control and stops him.
Agreed 100%. The people who are pointing to Hearns-Barkley here are ignoring the fact that Benn lacked the chin or heart of Barkley to hang in there enough to come back at Hearns. Tam also hit the nail on the head when he pointed out that Michael Watson was able to take everything Benn could throw and then basically make him quit from a jab... I can't see a fighter who can lose in that way being able to stay with Hearns and then get to him. Just to say, "Benn beat Barkley who beat Hearns" is totally ignoring the stylistics of this match.
Tommy may beat Benn but mentioning the Michael Watson fight as evidence is just plain stupid. Benn hardly hit watson that night as the latter used a Winky Wright/StarlingESQUE type high glove defense all night to "rope-a-dope" Benn.
I can go along with Hearns overlooking Barkley going into the fight. But not sure I agree with you on the careless part, in fact not at all. If anything, I thought Hearns was extremely tentative in the first two rounds, and in fact did his best work in the 3rd, especially to the body. He got caught and didn't recover. Plus, he seemed like he was already breathing heavy moments before the knockdown, which I took as his punching himself out. That could go back to not doing what he was supposed to do in training camp - or just indicative of his shitty stamina. Either way, he got caught, and didn't seem to right any wrongs in the rematch (even if 4 years and two weight classes later). I'm not saying that Hearns doesn't KO Nigel here - it's the type of fight where regardless of who you believe will win, it's not lasting very long. But it's not out of the question that Benn turns the trick himself. Not by a longshot.
And also the "Benn got koed by a jab" line is equally stupid, if that's meant to serve as an indication of how bad his chin was. Benn was completely punched out at that point and would have gone down from a hard shove, let alone a jab. That argument is about as valid as saying that Foreman was stopped by a flurry of punches from Ali, without mentioning that Foreman was running on fumes when he went over. :nono:
Actually, the ONLY thing stupid here is trying to compare a flurry of punches to one single jab. That, and Michael Watson to Muhammad Ali.
First of all, Wright and Starling used their distinctive defenses to go forward, not to play on the ropes, so your comparison doesn't work there. Secondly, it doesn't matter what defense Watson used because it still wasn't nearly as good as Hearns' when he boxed. If Benn couldn't get through to a guy like Michael Watson with a KO shot, who was standing on the ropes and right in front of him for most of the fight, he doesn't stand much of a chance of getting all the way through to Hearns either.
Benn vs Watson was a fight between two green prospects that had never faced a world class opponent before.At about the same stage in their careers as Hearns was when he started to gas out against Harold Weston and thumbed him to stay in the fight, ending Weston's career because of it. Benn clearly improved after that fight and learned to pace himself better, though i would still take Hearns over him.
Actually what I was "comparing" were instances where fighters were stopped primarily by exhaustion rather than punches. You think the punches landed in either fight were the main reason for the stoppage? Yes I really compared Michael Watson to Muhammed Ali. ::
Oh and you want a valid example of a fighter being put on queer street by a single jab try Brown/Norris.
