oddly enough, hearn's best chance may have still been to go for a kayo. he had all the wrong weaknesses for hagler. Not enough physical strength and stamina to box enough to win. Yes he could win a boxing match but not for twelve rounds.
Its not impossible for him to win a decision in this scenario. Tommy finally was really filling into his body as a middleweight and beyond if he wanted to go up, and Marvin was pretty far gone by this point. His conditioning really wasn't the issue, it was just that he(or anyone else for that matter) didn't hit hard enough to KO Marvin, and that he didn't have the beard to withstand punches from a guy with above average power like Marvin, who even at his age still hit like a truck.
I'll give you my impression of what would have happened following the result of my proposed Hagler/Hearns II result as posted earlier.
Hagler notches his 14th successful defense, but never looked more vulnerable in the process. In his quest to be recognized as the greatest, he wants one more defense to break Monzon's record with which he is currently tied.
Hagler refuses to take a soft touch, and decides to go in there against a young, highly touted and highly rated kid named Michael "Second To" Nunn. The fight is set for March 1989.
Hagler, despite wins over Hearns & Ray Leonard, has never looked more vulnerable. Meanwhile, Nunn has beaten Frank Tate, and picked apart one of Hagler's toughest foes, Juan Roldan with relative ease before knocking him out in the 8th.
Nunn employs the same fight plan as Marvin last saw against Thomas Hearns, with the difference being Nunn is at his physical peak. He's younger, faster, more accurate than Tommy was, and is in better shape. He drops a round here and there, but at the end of 12, he wins a wide UD to become the new middleweight champion.
Marvin trained as hard as ever for the fight. Yet he saw how ineffective he was. He knows that he's 35 years old, and that he just doesn't have the physical ability to still be an elite fighter. He made his money, became a crossover superstar, and retires with dignity.
Now, if this chain of events does happen, lets look at what wouldn't have happened:
- Leonard stays retired for who knows how long, because there's no way he doesn't come back, but does he still go up against Lalonde or Hearns or Norris?
- Tommy Hearns doesn't get flattened by Iran Barkley since he fights Hagler instead.
- Barkley doesn't win a piece of the middleweight title, and its possible the only time we hear of him is losing to upper tier middleweights and super middleweights.
- If Barkley doesn't win a piece of the middleweight title, its very possible Roberto Duran never does either, and history is altered as Duran never becomes a 4 division champion.
- Hagler's legacy is altered forever. He beat Ray Leonard, and Thomas Hearns one more time. The one stat that people always use against him when comparing him to Monzon was that he didn't make as many defenses as Carlos. With those two wins he does, and probably cements himself ahead of Monzon right there with Greb and Robinson.
- Michael Nunn's fall from grace is even more tragic, as he beat one of the greatest fighters of all time to become the true middleweight champion, then degenerates into a shell of himself. Instead of beating very good guys, he beats an all-timer and possibly the best middleweight to ever lace them up, only to currently be serving a prison sentence because he couldn't keep his nose clear of the junk.
