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Doheny is big in Japan... again! Bakhram too Cul’ a customer

BONDI Junction based TJ Doheny is once again proving big in Japan.

The southpaw from Portlaoise, a former IBF super-bantamweight champion, is returning to the Land of the

Rising Sun for a May 6 date on a mega show at the Tokyo Dome and could end up fighting the main event on a quadruple world title fight show.

Doheny has been signed up to face unbeaten Bryl Bayogos from the Philippines in a scheduled eight rounder on a bill headed by The Monster himself, undisputed and undefeated super-bantamweight supremo Naoya Inoue.

Record

Bayogos, a 22-yearold fron General Santos City, is undefeated himself with a record of seven wins and a draw, but co-promoters Bob Arum, Akihiko Honda and Hideyuki Ohashi are, apparently, more concerned with having Doheny on the card as a form of insurance should Inoue's opponent, former WBC bantamweight and super-bantamweight titles holder Luis Nery, pull out through injury.

It will be Doheny's fourth visit to Tokyo and thus far he has notched up a hat-trick of wins.

He became IBF champion there by woutscoring Ryosuke Iwasa at the Korakuen Hall in August 2018 and was back in the famous venue twice for inside the distance wins last year, stopping Kazuki Nakajima in four rounds in June and then previously unbeaten Japhethlee Llamido after just 2:28 of the first round in late October.

Inoue has a perfect 26-0 record while Nery, from Tijuana, has 35 wins in 36 fights.

THIRTY-NINE years ago next Monday what some regard as the greatest fight ever was staged in Las Vegas — and on a Monday night, too.

The meeting of middleweight champion Marvin Hagler and WBC light-middleweight title holder Thomas Hearns had been billed and promoted as The War and it more than lived up to its billing.

The pair were first scheduled to face each other almost three years earlier, at the Windsor Arena in Windsor, Ontario, on May 24.

At the time, Hagler was 54-2-2, had been middleweight champion for just over a year and a half and had made a quartet of successful defences, winning

BEST OF THE BEST: Marvin Hagler and Thomas Hearns put on a show at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas in April 1985 that will never be forgotten all of them inside the distance.

Hearns was 34-1, having lost his WBA welterweight belt to Sugar Ray Leonard eight months previously but bounced back with wins over Ernie Singletary and Marcos Geraldo.

Finger

Hearns, however, broke a finger on his right hand less than three weeks before the bout and the entire show

BAKHRAM Murtazaliev won ■

the vacant WBA light-middleweight title formerly held by Jermell Charlo with a penultimate round stoppage of former interim champion Jack Culcay at the Stadthalle in Falkensee in Germany.

Murtazaliev, a 31-year-old Russian who now lives in Oxnard in California, settled a was cancelled.

It was rearranged for just over seven weeks later, July 15, but this time Hearns insisted that the venue for the fight would be The Silverdone in Pontiac, Michigan, little more than half an hour from adopted home of Detroit. Hagler refused to meet Hearns in the Detroit area and the bout was his thrilling showdown by dropping Culcay with a left hook late in the 11th; Culcay beat the count but local referee Timo Habighorst stepped in with just ten seconds left in the session.

The win was the 22nd in succession — and the 16th inside the distance — for the unbeaten Murtazaliev.

Culcay, a 38-year-old German cancelled. Despite the fact that it was he who scuttered the deal, Hagler claimed “Hearns is afraid to fight me. He always was, and he always will be.”

Both went their separate ways. Hagler made six more successful defences and Hearns also had half a dozen successive wins to his name.

Then, towards the end of 1984 Bob Arum got down to business. The fight, which was fixed for the following April 15 at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, was announced on December 13.

In front of a crowd of 15,088 and with Richard Steele — the undisputed No.1 ‘third man’ of the day — as referee Hagler and Hearns waged a war that last eight seconds less than eight minutes.

What a war, though.

Going into the ring, Hagler’s record stood at 60-2-2 and Hearns was 40-1; Hagler had 50 inside the distance wins and Hearns had 34, so explosive action was expected.

It came from the very first bell. Hagler was normally something of a slow starter — a trait that would prove costly against Sugar Ray Leonard in the same ring two years later — and Hearns jumped on him straight away.

The result was what was surely the greatest opening round in boxing history as the pair traded blows nonstop for every second of the three minutes. Before the round was over, Hagler was badly cut over the right eye and Hearns had broken his right hand.

Round two, naturally, was less frenetic but only in comparison to what had preceeded it. Hagler switced to orthodox from his usual southpaw stance, Early in round three, with Hagler’s cut worsening, referee Steele called ringside doctor Flip Homansky to inspect the injury.

Homansky asked Hagler, “Can you see all right?”, to which the fighter allegedly replied with the famous question, “I ain’t missing him, am I?” but Steele insists those word were never used and what the champion actually said was, “There’s no way I’m going to lose on a cut”.

Almost immediately on the resumption of the action, Hagler caught Hearns with a right hook that sent him reeling into the ropes. Hagler then nailed him with a right cross to the chin that sent Hearns tumbling to the canvas. He struggled to beat the count and, although he managed to get up, he was in no condition to continue and Steele stopped the fight with just eight seconds left in the round.

Eleven months after their classic, Hagler and Hearns fought again in the same Caesars Palace ring, but in different fights. Hagler knocked out John Mugabi at 1:29 of the 11th round and Hearns flattened James Schuler — who would die in a motorbike accident just ten days later — at

1:13 of the opening session. who was born in

Ecuador and who beat Willie McLaughlin as an amateur and Dennis Hogan as a pro, lost for the fifth time in 38 fights.

IN an eliminator for the IBF ■

light-welterweight title, Richardson Hitchins won a unanimous but close decision over Gustavo Lemos in a clash of unbeatens at the in Las

Slow

Vegas.

Hitchins, a 26-year-old from Brooklyn, boosted his record to 18-0 by taking two cards of 115-113 and a rather flattering one of 117-111. Lemos, a 28-year-old from Buenos Aires who was fighting outside Argentina for the first time, suffered his first loss after 29 successive wins.