Tommy Hearns understood what was expected from him the night 30 years ago when he stepped into the ring to face Marvin Hagler for the middleweight title. There would be no running. There wouldn’t even be that much boxing. “I knew before I got in the ring I had to put a show on for the people,” Hearns said. “I knew I had to get him or they would say something is wrong with Tommy.”
Ring history was made that night in April 1985 in what may have been the best first round ever in a major title fight. Hearns and Hagler went toe-to-toe in fearsome exchanges that bloodied Hagler and eventually sapped the vaunted punching power of Hearns. There’s no evidence that Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao will put on anything close to the epic three-rounder that was Hagler-Hearns. Mayweather has only one knockout in the last eight years, Pacquiao hasn’t stopped anyone in nearly six, and there’s a far better chance of them both fighting to the final bell of the 12th round than any other outcome.
If Mayweather is uncharacteristically aggressive, that could play into the hands of Pacquiao, who needs to be able to find Mayweather in the ring to beat him. Pacquiao showed some power in his last fight, knocking Chris Algieri down six times in Macau on his way to a lopsided decision win. Former heavyweight champion George Foreman said Mayweather’s tremendous counter-punching ability won’t be enough for him to win the fight unless he engages Pacquiao more often than he has other fighters.