A Marvelous Fight--and a Marvelous Finish : Hagler Puts End to Brawl and to Hearns in Third

LAS VEGAS —  They met immediately in the center of the ring Monday night, with all the elegance of a head-on collision, and thus released the held breath of about 16,000 fans. And for the next 10 minutes, the collective gasp resounded, soaring into the night sky above the outdoor arena. Who could believe what was happening? Had two men, ever, responded to their calling with such commitment, with such self-confidence?

Marvelous Marvin Hagler, whose fierce, bald head would soon run red, had for this night abandoned the sweet science, had refused to employ the master boxing skills that had won him the undisputed middleweight championship. Instead, he stormed into the long right arm of Thomas Hearns, the super-welterweight champion who dared challenge him, either unmindful of his own personal safety or disparaging of Hearns’ well-documented offenses.

But did Hearns box in return, did he use his foot speed to spare his body from the shorter boxer’s inside digging? He matched Hagler’s nameless bravado and he traded until he had no more to offer, until his long legs betrayed him, until Hagler bombed him on the top of the head with a lurching, overhand right, sending him reeling to the floor, soon flat on his back.

The most anticipated fight in three years, a fight that guaranteed the two champions a combined $11 million minimum, was over, with referee Richard Steele waving Hagler off, supporting a dazed Hearns against the ropes until Hearns’ handlers could arrive and carry him off, like a gunnysack. Boxing’s two best fighters had finally resolved all questions--age vs. youth, height vs. might, you name it--and just 2:01 into the third round. It was over. And the 16,000 people, rhinestoned-celebrities and cigar-smoking cognoscenti, in their bleacher seats atop some asphalt behind Caesars Palace, remembered to breathe.

It was quite possibly the most remarkable three-round fight in ring history. Certainly it was the most unexpected. Hagler, 30, figured to extend Hearns, 26, if he could, piling up points with the body shots while defending his shaven head, carrying the fight into the late rounds when his celebrated endurance might make a difference. Hearns’ strategy was simple and oft-stated. Taller at 6-1, by nearly four inches, he was going to knock Hagler out in three, using the well-leveraged right hand that long ago earned him the Hit Man mystique, that earned him this fight in fact with the sudden dispatch of legendary Roberto Duran, the man Hagler could not finish.

It didn’t work out that way Monday night, a warm night with small breezes moving the pennants atop the bleachers. The night began as a cultural affair, with the slight undercard interrupted by seemingly spontaneous applause. It’s Jack Nicholson. It’s Muhammad Ali. It’s Bo Derek. It was strictly Las Vegas, and even the entrance of the two warriors, Hearns to the Michigan fight song, Hagler to a curious military march, seemed only to divert the crowd’s attention, perhaps until Magic Johnson or Sylvester Stallone was identified.

But the community of celebrity was quickly engrossed in what developed. It was hard not to be.

Hagler, who weighed 159 for his 11th title defense, admitted his surprising rush afterward. It was a terrorist mission, strictly, only one he expected to return from. “I figured I had to take punches to get some,” he said. It was a calculated risk; few have ever taken more than a few punches from Hearns, 159 3/4, and stood to return them.

But Hagler, whose long residence in obscurity was possible only because of unbelievable self-confidence, fully expected Hearns’ cannons to be small bore, the Hit Man’s 34 knockouts in 41 previous fights notwithstanding. There had been some thought, anyway, that Hearns had lost some punch as he moved from welterweight to super-welterweight and now to middleweight. Except for the devastating knockout of Duran last year. That was hard to discount.

But Hagler was right. Hearns could not hurt him, not badly anyway. In that firestorm of a first round, when it was almost impossible to tell one salvo from another, Hearns did connect with a wicked right uppercut. And certainly Hagler was stunned. Yet he did not yield an inch, and before that round was over, he had backed Hearns into the ropes and used his strength to keep him there. The suffering Hearns simply could not box out.

The second round was no less active. Hagler worked his concussive magic on Hearns’ nervous system. He hit him with a right hand and a left hook and began to unravel the wiring that kept Hearns’ legs steady. In the final 20 seconds of that round, Hagler pinned Hearns against the ropes, hurting his midsection, hurting it even worse than Sugar Ray Leonard did in their showdown here four years ago.

There was something strange about Hearns in that round, even though he grinned and still bombed back. He seemed to stand in Hagler’s way long after he should have removed himself from fire. His legs weren’t working.

Throughout all of this, there was the continual threat of stoppage, by the ring doctor of all people. Hagler, whose brow is studded with scar tissue as well might any man with a 61-2-2 record, bled openly. There was a cut high above his right eye, deepened with each round. But the blood ran down the bridge of his nose and though frightful did not obscure his vision. Anyway, most of it seemed to get sopped up on Hearns’ shoulder, where Hagler occasionally rested his head to dig to the liver.

The third round belonged to Hagler altogether, although a timeout to inspect Hagler’s cut did pose a threat to his domination. Hearns’ right hands, though sharp, were no bother otherwise; Hagler suffered them gladly. Then, after ring physician Dr. Donald Romeo gave his permission for more violence--he simply asked Hagler whether he could still see--the overhand right by Hagler. There were two lesser blows, but they were not required. Hearns was on his way down. Falling back and to the side into the ropes.

Steele looked at him, after Hearns hauled himself up before the count, and called it off, making it a three-round TKO. “He was not responsive,” Steele said. “I didn’t have to ask him questions--I knew he had enough. His eyes were glazed and his legs very wobbly. By the second round, Hagler’s punches were really telling on him.”

Neither fighter had that much to say after the fight. Of course, Hagler hadn’t been saying all that much before the fight; he doesn’t talk for just the fun of it. But even in his brief comments, he seemed suddenly charismatic, no longer the working stiff who plied his trade with the flamboyance of a union dockworker. A knockout can do that to personality.

Yes, he wanted to prove something by beating Hearns better than Leonard had. He did. Yes, he said he knew he was on his way after the second round, because “he looked tired going back to his corner. I could tell he was hurt.” He said his confidence grew, for that matter, after the first round, when Hearns “threw everything but the kitchen sink.” And he could catch it.

Hearns, meanwhile, was generous to Hagler afterward and admitted it was Hagler’s fight, certainly not his; he doesn’t ordinarily brawl. Why did he allow himself to get sucked into that kind of fight? He shrugged. “I had to protect myself,” he said.

He hadn’t, it wasn’t possible. Hagler’s determination--to be the greatest fighter today--was such that he would have walked into a lumber saw to achieve his dream. And Hearns, though no less determined, was not as many-bladed as other fighters had found him, as he himself had thought.

Of course, there was immediate talk of a rematch, though they are never as prosperous as that first mysterious fight between two great fighters. But that surely is a long time coming, as anybody could tell who saw Hearns supported against the ropes, looking into a distance you just can’t imagine.