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Thomas Hearns
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Hearns, Thomas
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Hearns, Thomas
Hearns, Thomas Thomas Hearns (left) retaining his title in a 1981 WBA welterweight fight against Pablo Baez.

Thomas Hearns

American boxer
Also known as: Tommy Hearns, the Hitman, the Motor City Cobra(Show More)
Written by
Adam Augustyn
Adam Augustyn was a senior editor at Encyclopædia Britannica.
Adam Augustyn
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Britannica Editors
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....
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•History

Thomas Hearns (born October 18, 1958, Memphis, Tennessee, U.S.) is an American boxer who became, in 1987, the first person to win world titles in four weight divisions. Renowned as a devastating puncher (rather than as a boxer who relied on textbook technique), Hearns ultimately won world titles in five weight classes (welterweight, light middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight, and light heavyweight). (Read Gene Tunney’s 1929 Britannica essay on boxing.) Hearns grew up in Detroit, where...

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