By Brent Matteo Alderson
Can you believe that Virgil Quicksilver Hill just earned a piece of the WBA title the other night? And even though the boxing fraternity recognizes O’Neil Bell as the world’s true cruiserweight champ, Hill’s victory over an undefeated world class fighter is still a major accomplishment and a kind of homage to the consistency that he has displayed through out his career that has lasted more than 20 years. Take a look at his teammates of that famed 84 team. Meldrick Taylor hasn’t been a champ since 92 and suffers from boxing induced brain damage. Evander Holyfield can’t throw more than fifteen punches a round and hasn’t won a fight since 2002, Mark Breland’s career was pretty much over in 87 as was Tyrell Biggs’s, and Pernell Whitaker was stopped by Carlos Bojorquez in 2001. And yet, Virgil Hill is still here, knocking on the door of a legitimate world championship at the age of 42.
It’s really kind of funny because the Silver Medallist was thought to be one of the fighters from that team that wasn’t going to make an impact as a professional. In fact on the night that he turned pro at Madison Square Garden in November of 1984 his fight was cut from television because a lot of people didn’t think he was going to make waves as a professional, but here he is outlasting all of his other teammates.
And even though Virgil never became a pound-for pounder or a major box office attraction, of all his teammates, only Evander Holyfield and Pernell Whitaker had more successful careers. A point could be made that Meldrick Taylor had a better career, but I’m not so sure about that, especially considering Taylor’s condition today as well as the length of time that he was at his best, which was from the time he beat Buddy McGirt in 88 to the Aaron Davis fight in 91. Virgil Hill on the other hand was a pillar of consistency and was one of the top five light heavyweights in the world for 10 years.
After accumulating an 18-0 record Virgil defeated Leslie Stewart for the WBA Light-Heavyweight title in September of 87. He then went on to make 10 defenses against mostly mediocre opposition, although a decision over Bobby Czyz and a first round knock of James Kinchen, who had given Tommy Hearns all he could handle two fights prior, stand out as noteworthy defenses.
Then in June of 91, Hill was supposed to get his signature win over a legend that was supposed to have catapulted him to super-stardom. The prior February Sugar Ray Leonard had been dealt a vicious beating at the hands of Terry Norris and at the time Virgil was viewed as being a lot more threatening than Norris. He was a big light heavyweight at 6’1, was an undefeated 30-0, and had been the WBA champ for over three years. Meanwhile Tommy hadn’t looked good in years and in the five fights since Iran Barkley had knocked him out, he was almost stopped by a much smaller man in Sugar Ray Leonard and was nearly knocked out by James Kinchen.
So going into their fight, Virgil was a heavy favorite, but the thing about Tommy Hearn is that he was never out boxed through out his entire career. Even though he has knick-names like the Hit Man and the Motor City Cobra and is remembered for his devastating knockouts of Pipino Cuevas and Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns was a master boxer, maybe one of the best ever.
Nobody ever out boxed Tommy Hearns, No one. The great Sugar Ray Leonard couldn’t do it; he had to fight Tommy to win. Same goes with Hagler and Barkley. If you wanted to beat Tommy you had to outfight, you couldn’t outbox him. The now deceased Alex Sherer who took over Emanuel Steward’s position as trainer for a stint theorized, “Great boxers don’t like to be boxed and that’s what Tommy did, he out boxed him,” and took his WBA 175 pound title by unanimous decision.
There were some other factors contributing to the loss. First off it was the first time that Virgil had fought on such a big stage. The fight was on pay-per-view at Caesars Palace and he was fighting someone who had actually earned the nickname “the Hitman.” Also, his trainer, Freddie Roach was still a novice in terms of being a head trainer with big fight experience.
Roach had actually trained under the tutelage of the venerable Eddie Futch and when Roach retired from the squared circle, Papa Smurf as Riddick Bowe used to call him, took Freddie under his wing as a kind of protégé. As Futch got a little older, Freddie started to assume more and more of Hill’s training responsibilities until he became Virgil’s primary trainer as the result of Futch spending so much time with Bowe who was supposed to have been his last masterpiece.
Tommy lost the title he won from Hill to Iran Barkley who vacated it in order to defend his IBF 168-pound title against James Toney and Virgil beat his Olympic teammate Frank Tate for the vacant title.
After racking up a slew of title defenses, which included solid wins over Adolpho Washington, Lou DeValle, and Fabrice Tiozzo, Virgil unified the title against long time IBF counterpart Henry Maske. The win over Maske in Germany was probably the crowning achievement of Hill’s career because it kind of validated his work at light-heavyweight since Maske had been such a solid champion with ten title defenses of his own. But the win over Maske was his last title-fight win at 175 pounds and in his very next fight he lost to Dariusz Michalczewski by decision. Then he had a catch weight bout with Roy Jones Jr. and was stopped with one of the most vicious body shots ever seen in the prize ring in the spring of 98.
After the Jones debacle most people wrote Hill off, but in December of 2000 he knocked out Fabrice Tiozzo for the WBA cruiserweight title. Most people thought that Fabrice was going to win because Hill had looked ordinary prior to the bout and because Tiozzo was on a run with solid wins over guys like Mike McCallum and Nate Miller. The first fight between the two had ended in split-decision for Hill so the conventional wisdom was that he had lost a step or two and would lose a decision.
Surprise, Surprise, he knocked Tiozzo out in one round and earned comeback of the year honors in a number of publications. Then after a lengthy period of activity he lost his cruiserweight title to Mormeck by knockout. Then in the rematch with Mormeck he lost a very close decision. At the end of the day Virgil Hill has had a very successful boxing career that is synonymous with the word consistency. After winning another alphabet strap the other night, O’Neil Bell should give Virgil a chance to fight for the real title. Hill deserves it.
Random Notes:
People don’t even realize it, but every time Pacquiao or one of Freddie Roach’s fighters wins a big fight, it’s homage to Eddie Futch and his greatness.
I still don’t know who I like in Vargas-Mosley, but I’m leaning towards Fernando because I think Mosley’s brain trust took the fight in order to insure Shane at least two more good paydays. If he loses to Fernando he can go down to 147 and fight Mayweather still. It’s kind of like what the Duvas did with Meldrick Taylor when they threw him in there with Terry Norris in May of 92, knowing that Meldrick was probably going to lose in his mandatory to Crisanto Espana. As history proved it was a smart move because Mel was knocked out by Espana in the fall. The Duvas had actually gotten Taylor an extra HBO pay day that he would not have otherwise had.
How the hell was Damgaard 37-0? It boggles the mind. He made Gatti look like the second coming of Sugar Ray Robinson.
Again, check out the latest issue of the Ring, I did the cover story on Marco Antonio Barrera and he talks about why he lost to Pacquioa and why it’s going to be different the next time they fight.
I went to Martin Castillo’s home last week. He runs 10-miles in 70 minutes. He’s also dyeing to fight Jorge Arce and Fernando Montiel on HBO BAD. Come on Golden Boy Promotions, talk withTop Rank and give these kids a chance to make a little bit of money.
The story I did on Martin Castillo comes out on February 22 in Boxing 2006
Tommy Hearns knocks Trinidad out at 147 and 154.
Evander Holyfield is a legend and a warrior, but I was appalled when Ring Magazine ranked him as the third greatest Heavyweight in history in one of their specials years ago. I think Larry Holmes should be ranked above Evander as should a number of other heavyweights.
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