BoxRec

was sad to see the real hitman chatting on tv at the weekend, he voice seems in deterioration and therefore he is showing definate signs of cranial ring wear.

i hope thomas call it a day now while his faculties are still just in tact.

dont spoil your legacy tommy, dont fight again.

you have provided us with fantastic memories and we salute you.

He has a choice to make, he can either go the way of SRL or he can go the way of Wilfredo Benitez, its his call!

I hope he makes the right one...

harsh but true pocket, SRL is a glowing example how you can have a long career and remain fully compus mentus after the career finishes.

Heres a question Rhino, as a medical man what causes the damge and loss of faculties witnessed by some fighters??

It seems strange to me that some of the greatest defensive fighters of all time get hurt yet guys like La-Motta and Graziano had their faculties in complete working order until later life..

Is it punishment or genetic??

its punishment, every blow to the head throughout our lives causes brain cell damage. regardless of how hard the head blow is.

the brain does not have the capacity to heal a single cell, so once they have gone they have gone !! luckilly we have millions and millions of them.

the same blow will do some more damage than others, that the nature of the human body, we are all different, some bruise easier than others, some are better hung than others, some are uglier than others, some go bald earlier than others, some have better pain resistance than others etc etc.

Even is his prime Hearns was never a great talker, but it has got worse the last few years.
Hope he doesn't come back again, he's got nothing to prove to anyone.

Anyone see Ronald Hearns (Tommys son), fight?

rhino222 wrote:harsh but true pocket, SRL is a glowing example how you can have a long career and remain fully compus mentus after the career finishes.

In terms of foghts SRL had a pretty short career. Plus he took very little punishment.

Hearns defeats to Hagler and Barkely couldnt have done his brain any good.

Tommy always was a bit nasal in his speech, but he is now what I would call punchy

Hearns also had hard fights with Kinchen, Roldan , Delgado and Andres.
in all of them he was either decked or hurt. In the long run it can't do you any good.

Long career means lots of sparring in the gym also.
Even with the headgear and bigger gloves, the brain is still getting rattled .
Guys get hit in the gym quite a bit also.
The extra gear has you standing in there a little bit more.

I remember watching Tommy Hearns when he was a guest on the Tonight Show with the late Johnny Carson, after he defeated Juan Roldan, and almost 20 years ago he had already developed a noticeable slur in his speech.

Expug wrote:Long career means lots of sparring in the gym also.
Even with the headgear and bigger gloves, the brain is still getting rattled .
Guys get hit in the gym quite a bit also.
The extra gear has you standing in there a little bit more.

yeah i heard that the Kronk sparring sessions were very hard, nothing held back.

It's always so sad to see a fighter suffer with his health when still a relatively young man. This is even more moving when it's such a fine fighter as Tommy Hearns who has given us so many thrills over the years.

Iran Barkley is also talking about making a comeback and there are already ugly whispers of a Hearns vs Barkley III fight, truely horrific thought.

It does sadly appear that all those tough fights have took their toll on Tommy. Add on top of that countess gym wars in the Kronk Gym, which were often by all accounts quite brutal.

Unfortunately, its probable that the damage has already been done. One thing that gave me some relief is that he didn't sound any worse than in 2004 when he was interviewed for the BBC. Manny was talking (with Tommy beside him) like he had died. Steve Bunce made a point that it was nose damage and not brain damage, lets hope it is the case.

Saw and chatted to the 'Hitman' in Vegas this weekend and he certainly came over as not healthy. He was walking around kind of stooped over, shuffling along like one side of his body was paralyzed, when I said to the guys I was with that he was planning a comeback not one of them belived me.

That aside he was a really friendly bloke happy to chat and take pictures, really enjoying the company of various different ladies throughout the weekend!

The great shame is that Hearns wasnt happy to walk away from boxing about 10 or 15 years ago when he should have... he probably should have retired after the 2nd Leonard fight, he was already slurring his words by then. Anyone saying that his speech is due to a damaged nose is talking crap, they used to say that Ali had been hit in the throat... I really fear for what may happen to Hearns in the next few years...

KOJOE90 wrote:It's always so sad to see a fighter suffer with his health when still a relatively young man. This is even more moving when it's such a fine fighter as Tommy Hearns who has given us so many thrills over the years.

Iran Barkley is also talking about making a comeback and there are already ugly whispers of a Hearns vs Barkley III fight, truely horrific thought.

It does sadly appear that all those tough fights have took their toll on Tommy. Add on top of that countess gym wars in the Kronk Gym, which were often by all accounts quite brutal.

Dont forget also long Amatuer careers, Aaron Pryor has the same illness that Jerry Quarry had and puts it partly down to all the amatuer fights that he had...

Jesus, I didn't realise that Arron Pryor was in a bad way.

thepocketrocket wrote:Heres a question Rhino, as a medical man what causes the damge and loss of faculties witnessed by some fighters??

It seems strange to me that some of the greatest defensive fighters of all time get hurt yet guys like La-Motta and Graziano had their faculties in complete working order until later life..

Is it punishment or genetic??

Bentitez was fighting top fighters when he was still a teenager, he was also in some wars, especially the first Curry fight when he was out on his feet for a while... and later in his career he suffered some bad ko defeats to Moore and Hilton.... when you look over Benitezs career its not hard to see why he has problems today... but I admit it is puzzeling when you see guys like Chuvalo and Lamotta in good shape still... though to be fair both Chuvalo and Lamotta had far better defences than they got credit for having... Chuvalo never really ever got hammered in the same way as Jerry Quarry imo...

Aaron has been in a bad way for years. He might say it's boxing now, but it's much more likely down to nearly killing himself with millions of $$ of crack, than boxing I'd imagine.
He didn't take too much punishment in his career, he was too good. And he cut short his boxing career to make room for the drugs.

And yes Tommy sounds bad these days, and safe to say boxing takes the blame on that one.

stujones wrote:Jesus, I didn't realise that Arron Pryor was in a bad way.

I read it on one of the other sites a while back, in an interview with Pryor... I think he was diagnosed with it in 2002... I think he's still in the early stages, hopefully it wont progress very fast like it did for Quarry...
Leon Spinks has it as well I beleive... I think both Barkley and Hearns are in the early stages, it defies belief that anyone would allow either of them to fight again, much less fight eachother... if Hearns fights again I doubt he'll even be alive in 10 years time...

MightyWarrior wrote:Aaron has been in a bad way for years. He might say it's boxing now, but it's much more likely down to nearly killing himself with millions of $$ of crack, than boxing I'd imagine.
He didn't take too much punishment in his career, he was too good. And he cut short his boxing career to make room for the drugs.

And yes Tommy sounds bad these days, and safe to say boxing takes the blame on that one.

Pryor took a lot of punches during his career, he didnt exactly have an air tight defence, add that to a long amuteur career and drug abuse... its true that the drugs wouldnt have done him any favours but drugs alone dont usually give you pugilistic dementia...

I thought Barkley sounded okay on ESPN the other week.... A little slurred, but he was never a Jim Watt when doing interviews in his pomp. Judging by his condition, I don't think he is serious about a comeback. He seemed quite cohesive and articulate in answering the questions.

Leon has certainly been moving well seeing him in the ring with his son's sucess.... but I aint heard him talk.

stujones wrote:I thought Barkley sounded okay on ESPN the other week.... A little slurred, but he was never a Jim Watt when doing interviews in his pomp. Judging by his condition, I don't think he is serious about a comeback. He seemed quite cohesive and articulate in answering the questions.

Leon has certainly been moving well seeing him in the ring with his son's sucess.... but I aint heard him talk.

It affects different people to differing degrees, often it starts with just effecting the memory and speech slightly then progresses slowly or sometimes quickly...

Bloody hell its 19 years since Barkley beat Hearns the first time, June 6th 1988.
Didn't think it was that long ago, I remember watching it, think it was on ITV.
Hearns was all over Barkley and it looked as if Barkley wouldn't last the 3rd round, then he threw that right hand and it was good night Hearns.

It only takes one punch in the wrong place to permanently damage a boxer. Look at Micheal Watson. Then there are guys like Arturo Gatti and Evander Holyfield who have been involved in brutal fights but seem unaffected. Especially Holyfields fights with Riddick Bowe