World middleweight title · 1987
Hearns survives Roldán to become the first four-weight world champion
Thomas Hearns put Juan Roldán down three times in two rounds, then had to hang on when his own legs went. In the fourth he knocked him out.
Six months before this fight, Sugar Ray Leonard beat Marvin Hagler and retired, leaving the WBC middleweight title vacant. Thomas Hearns had won the WBC light-heavyweight title from Dennis Andries, and the WBC told him to defend it or come back down to middleweight. He came back down.
Hearns had already won world titles at welterweight and light-middleweight. Henry Armstrong, Alexis Argüello and Roberto Durán had all tried to win a fourth and failed. His opponent at the Las Vegas Hilton on 29 October was Juan Roldán, an Argentine with 65 wins, three defeats and two draws. Both men had lost to Hagler. Hearns, the 8–5 favourite, was paid $1.1 million and Roldán $250,000.
"When I beat Roldan," Hearns said beforehand, "it will erase all the criticizing I've been getting from people because of the fact that Ray Leonard and Marvin Hagler beat me."
Three knockdowns
Roldán went for him from the first bell. Hearns dropped him with right hands, Roldán got up and hit back, and he was down again near the end of the round. Early in the second a left hook put him down a third time.
He kept coming. In the third a right hand from Roldán buckled Hearns's legs, and Hearns spent much of the round holding on. Early in the fourth a left hook shook him again.
The right hand
Hearns clinched and recovered, and then threw a right to the head. Roldán fell flat on his face. The referee, Mills Lane, counted him out at 2:01 of the round.
Hagler was at ringside as a co-commentator, and in the ring afterwards he congratulated the new champion. "Take real good care of my belt until I come back," he told Hearns, "if I come back." The two never fought again.
Afterwards
Hearns lost the title in his first defence, stopped in three rounds by Iran Barkley. In November 1988 he beat James Kinchen for the new WBO super-middleweight title and became the first man to win world titles at five weights.
Roldán fought three more times and retired after Michael Nunn stopped him.