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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - Against my better judgment, I looked at it again.
Even though every previous viewing – whether in connection with an anniversary or not – has yielded a subsequent hour’s worth of muttering and slack-jawed disbelief, I still lingered online after the close of Saturday night’s Froch-Johnson fight to take yet another look.
And even though I’m now up to about 1,000 viewings in what’s now been 23 years and 24 hours since the in-ring version of D-Day, the result hasn’t changed one friggin’ bit.
No matter how strong and sound and superb Thomas Hearns looks through 2˝ rounds of his June 6, 1988, middleweight title defense against Iran Barkley, the right hand still arrives.
He still collapses to the floor when it hits his jaw’s left side. He still wills himself to stand one tick before the count reaches 10. And he’s still far too unfit to continue when Richard Steele humanely intervenes with 21 seconds remaining in the third.
The guy was my favorite for 20-plus years. I saw all the big fights – wins and losses – he ever had.
I even had the chance to meet and interview him in a Detroit casino in 2005.
But no moment in those two-plus decades ever packed, or still packs, the “holy ****, did I really just see that?!?” wallop created by that 30-second stretch at the Hilton in Las Vegas.
I was lured into watching it again when the Internet feed of HBO’s Chavez-Zbik fight went cold after five or so rounds. I was still buzzing from Froch’s performance via Sky Sports an hour earlier, and wasn’t quite ready to call it a night or reduce myself to either Saturday Night Live wannabes or the insidious smugness of Harvey Levin and his TMZ smart-asses. [Click Here To Read More]
Even though every previous viewing – whether in connection with an anniversary or not – has yielded a subsequent hour’s worth of muttering and slack-jawed disbelief, I still lingered online after the close of Saturday night’s Froch-Johnson fight to take yet another look.
And even though I’m now up to about 1,000 viewings in what’s now been 23 years and 24 hours since the in-ring version of D-Day, the result hasn’t changed one friggin’ bit.
No matter how strong and sound and superb Thomas Hearns looks through 2˝ rounds of his June 6, 1988, middleweight title defense against Iran Barkley, the right hand still arrives.
He still collapses to the floor when it hits his jaw’s left side. He still wills himself to stand one tick before the count reaches 10. And he’s still far too unfit to continue when Richard Steele humanely intervenes with 21 seconds remaining in the third.
The guy was my favorite for 20-plus years. I saw all the big fights – wins and losses – he ever had.
I even had the chance to meet and interview him in a Detroit casino in 2005.
But no moment in those two-plus decades ever packed, or still packs, the “holy ****, did I really just see that?!?” wallop created by that 30-second stretch at the Hilton in Las Vegas.
I was lured into watching it again when the Internet feed of HBO’s Chavez-Zbik fight went cold after five or so rounds. I was still buzzing from Froch’s performance via Sky Sports an hour earlier, and wasn’t quite ready to call it a night or reduce myself to either Saturday Night Live wannabes or the insidious smugness of Harvey Levin and his TMZ smart-asses. [Click Here To Read More]
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