12, 15 or 20 rounds?

You just described Leonard/Hearns II.

 

yup

 

Not in their first fight. Hearns won rounds 8 - 12. I don't know that I agree with the notion that Leonard wins this fight as soon as he decides to turn it up.

 

Yeah, but that was a much older and more shopworn Hearns. And even then Leonard couldn't close the show.

 

In fairness, that wasn't exactly a fresh-as-a-daisy Ray Leonard in there, either

(it makes my skin crawl to come to the defense of that fucking bastard, especially at the expense of one of my all-time favorites in Hearns)

 

True, but Hearns had the much more demanding road to the rematch. And he had definitely started to look like a fighter on the decline (not "shot" or "washed up", but definitely not the same as he was in the early to mid 80's) before the Leonard rematch, which was most likely why Leonard was finally willing to fight him again. I remember when I first heard the rematch was gonna happen I was partially excited because it was finally gonna happen, but also partially pissed at Leonard for waiting until Hearns wasn't looking all that great to do so. Luckily, he underestimated Hearns (kinda like Tyson waiting for Holyfield to look like crap before taking him on and also having it backfire on him).

 

:bears:

 

Fights are no longer 15 rounds.

 

No doubt. But the fight still played out as Hut described. Hearns gets stopped there if its a 15 rounder.

 

12 rounds is teh gayz.

 

There's no way to know that for sure. Leonard was looking pretty gassed himself at the end of that 12th round. And it wasn't that Hearns was all that tired late, he had hurt and knocked down Leonard in the 11th and was winning the 12th until getting hurt about 1/2 thru the round even then but rode out the storm. It's not like Leonard was wearing him out up until that point. And...since we're playing the "if" game...If Hearns had boxed more instead of trying to get Leonard out of there in the last round, Leonard's rally probably doesn't even happen.