Vintage Robinson

27 Aug, 2005 in art pottery by admin

Vintage Robinson

Thomas Hearns Holds An Auction In Detroit: Autographed Boxing Memorabilia Unloaded To Pay Irs Debt

If you are like me and love the sport of boxing, autographed boxing memorabilia can be cherished prizes for a purist. I was born in 1970, and I was a little kid when Muhammad Ali was fighting in the mid to late 70's. Any autograph from ‘The Greatest' would be considered gold to any boxing fan. There are also some other great fighters that have an abundance of autographed boxing memorabilia in the marketplace. Sugar Ray Leonard is a fighter that comes to mind. Mike Tyson autographed items are very valuable. If you are lucky enough to have anything signed from greats like Sugar Ray Robinson, Jake LaMotta, Joe Louis, Larry Holmes, Aaron Pryor, Alexis Arguello, and Marvin Hagler, you are definitely a happy fan. Autographed boxing memorabilia is like gold to a true boxing fan.

This brings me to my point. I read on internet yesterday that the great Thomas Hearns has unloaded some of his personal boxing possessions at an auction in his hometown of Detroit. Hearns, an eight time world champion (61-5-1), didn't duck the challenge of paying a debt. The Associated Press reported that 51 year old Thomas ‘Hit Man' Hearns held the auction to help pay off a $448,000 debt to the Internal Revenue Service. Hearns said it ‘went well' and people were ‘very kind' to come out to the event billed as the "Battle of His Life". The report did not go into detail how Hearns acquired the debt, but nonetheless, he had to do what he had to in order to pay the debt. Reportedly, these items were not officially autographed boxing memorabilia. However, they were his personal items like a 1957 Chevy, three boats, a three wheeled motorcycle, and general boxing memorabilia. Again, it wasn't stated whether the memorabilia was actually autographed boxing memorabilia -but one would have to assume it would be autographed in order to get more value. The IRS was on hand to collect its money. It was not determined how much money was raised. The outpouring of support for Hearns' ordeal was admirable - or was it.
I think many people wanted to help Thomas Hearns, but at the end of the day, people wanted to get their hands on some of that autographed sports memorabilia and Hearns' personal items. This is the nature of the business. Let's hope Thomas Hearns overcomes his financial trouble and can hopefully keep the remainder of his prized personal possessions - if there are any left.

The learn more about autographed sports memorabilia, visit my site at Vintage Sports Memorabilia Online. Find out more about memorabilia collections, baseball cards, autographed memorabilia, and multiple tips on how to start buying vintage sports memorabilia.

About the Author

Andrew Parsons grew up in Southern California and is a graduate of Cal State Fullerton. He is a contributing writer at www.fightfannation.com. You can also see more of his writing at Vintage Sports Memorabilia Online where he discusses sports memorabilia as well as boxing memorabilia.

Why do you think that boxers farther back in the past were able to have busier careers?

Comparing the records of fighters of recent years to fighters of the 50's and back, there is a big gap in the number of fights that a fighter of vintage times had compared to a fighter of recent times. Not only that but fighters of more recent times seem to fade while only fighting a fraction of the times that fighters of old did (excluding certain cases on both ends of the spectrum). The best example of this is in the comparing of the two greatest "Sugars". Ray Robinson in the first five years of his career had recorded 59 fights against stiff competition and had been in a couple of wars (by all accounts) along the way. Ray Leonard on the other hand had been matched tough early in his career as well, had tough fights against hard competition and was past his prime after 30 fights. Now there are extenuating circumstances in many cases but the pattern is undeniable.

So my question is what are some reasons for this trend that has been occurring and increasing to an extent?

Fighters back then were trained and brought up the right way.Fighters today are protected and are image conscience.Those were the days before t.v. and fighters were trained the right way to use footwork and head movement,they were trained to be more complete fighters.After t.v. however that all changed as the promoters realized that slugfests drew a lot of viewers.Starting in the 50's the emphasis was to work on your knockout power and punching while footwork,head movement started to take a back seat.The idea was to make the sport more t.v. friendly to increase revenue.As time went on starting with the heavyweights,true boxing skill decreased.The emphasis was on showmanship and flash not actual quality.That's not to say their were no excellent fighters since the 50's just less of them overall.Obviously the 60's,70's and even the first half of the 80's saw some great fighters and classic fights.We all see now how poor the overall talent is now in boxing and in the last 20 years it has decreased dramatically.In the old days you would be trained to get as good as you could by fighting often and different styles of fighter.It wasn't so much about the record as long as you improved and that took time.Experience does not come easy and the best way to get it is to fight a lot.Instead of leaving it all in the gym with training and sparring,they fought live competition to get better.Live competition is better for a few reasons1)You're getting paid...2)there is danger of being beaten no matter the quality of opponent and that will keep you sharpe...3)You are exposed to more styles and can learn to adjust to an opponent during a fight.They also trained hard in the gym but there is more to learn in the ring than the gym.The old timers were very tough and mostly fought to put food on the table,that kind of mentality is much more motivated to win and do well than looking for your next million dollar payday.These days you see the best fight each other at most in a trilogy but usually just once and a loss against another great fighter is almost terms for retirement.The fighters years ago would get to a certain level and fight all the best fighters at that level sometimes multiple times.Many of the fighters that a Sugar Ray Robinson or Willie Pep or Kid Gavilan fought that had records of 0-0 1-0 1-1 and so on had pretty good amateur backrounds,so they weren't just a guy off the street.Not to mention they provided better competition than sparring.Leonard was very good but not at the level Robinson was.Most of the people that say he didn't fight that good of competition don't really know much about boxing or the fighters he fought,it seems if you were not on t.v. or fought before 1960 you were never that good.Robinson fought some great fighters in his day and Leonard was lucky on a few occasions to have some score cards go his way against his best competition.That should sum up the reason they were more active and in my opinion much better and complete fighters.

Sugar Ray Robinson beats Carmen Basilio