“That’s Wild”: Tommy Hearns Hurting Muhammad Ali in Lost Sparring Footage Sends Boxing World Into Meltdown

Muhammad Ali is one of the greatest fighters that the boxing world has ever seen. But his rise to the hall of fame was not a very easy task, a lot of hard work, and a lot of sparring were behind the massive success he enjoyed in his livelihood. Meanwhile, an old video of him sparring with another great, Thomas Hearns, resurfaced on the internet, leaving fans stunned.

HotBoxingMinute posted the video on Twitter recently with a very catchy caption. Muhammad Ali, one of the greats, is shown to have sparring or training with Thomas Hearns. In the video, it was seen that Muhammad Ali was barely able to spar Hearns and there was some clear depiction of his disease. Before delving into fan reactions, let’s go to the history of what happened with these two legends.

Tommy Hearns sparring with Muhammad Ali

Thomas ‘The Hitman’ Hearns is one of the great boxers with a record of 61-5. A hall of fame, whose career span was for over 29 years, from 1977 to 2006. He had only 5 losses in his entire career. Meanwhile, he got a chance to meet Muhammad Ali and be his sparring partner in 1981. He was certainly younger than Muhammad Ali and the old sparring video proves that.

The video was from 1981, which was posted by HotBoxingMinute, with the caption, “Tommy Hearns stuns Muhammad Ali sparring in 1981 #boxing”. In the video, Muhammad Ali’s inability to punch was visible. Also, symptoms of Parkinson’s were prominent. He missed throwing the punches and his punches were barely even hitting Thomas Hearns.

On the other hand, Hearns was in his prime, and he was shooting the punches with the right length, which disturbed Ali too much. Also, Hearns’ jabs were phenomenal against Ali.

Read more: Did DNA Testing Really Reveal Muhammad Ali’s Surprising Ancestral Link?

Fans were taken on a trip down memory lane with that video. They have said that their favorite hero is struggling with Alzheimer’s. Let’s see what fans are saying about the video.

Fans felt nostalgic and showered their love

Here are some comments from fans:

1981 was like the ending of Ali’s career and soon after that, he was diagnosed with late-stage idiopathic Parkinson’s disease. In the viral video, a tremor in hands and a struggling posture were visible. If that was not the case, then the video might be different.

However, what do you think of the sparring? Let us know in the comments.

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