Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns met at Caesars Palace on April 15, 1985, in a middleweight championship fight remembered for its furious pace. Hagler stopped Hearns in the third round. Anson Wainwright’s fortieth-anniversary feature returns to the matchup and the people who brought it to the ring.
The history began before that famous opening round. An earlier meeting had fallen through amid Hearns’s injury problems, making the eventual contest a long-awaited attraction. Read the retrospective alongside contemporary promotion accounts: the buildup and the brief, extraordinary fight are different parts of the same Las Vegas story.
Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns: 40th Anniversary
The Ring
Read at The Ring (opens in a new tab)The linked Ring retrospective was published April 15, 2025. The anniversary above is the fight date.
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