HBO Boxing
Thomas “The Hit Man” Hearns
1981
aka: “The Motor City Cobra”
It was the summer of 1981 and a championship fight was looming between “Sugar Ray” Leonard and Thomas “The Hit Man” Hearns. Hearns, also known as “The Motor City Cobra,” rented out a resort near Traverse City, Michigan to use as a training camp and HBO asked us to shoot the Hearns segment of a prefight special. But how were we to get there? We needed to take our 30’ production van and drivingthrough Chicago or Escanaba, MI didn’t seem like attractive options. “I know. Let’s take the ferry.”
Soon we found ourselves gathered on the deck of the SS Midland (no relation) Car Ferry as it left the dock in Manitowoc for the cruise across Lake Michigan to Ludington, MI
We spent the next few days sweating through the taping sessions because they had cranked up the heat in the training facility to simulate Las Vegas, where the championship fight was going to be held. (The Hearns Leonard bout on September 16, 1981 was the first fight ever telecast on pay-per-view.)
Mr. Leonard scored a TKO over Mr. Hearns in the 14th round. Here are two minutes of the pre-fight show that we helped shoot. Enjoy the ‘80’s music, graphics, hair and wardrobe (and the MVP credit at the end.) You’ll be humming “Motor City Hit Man” all day.
As we sailed away, I looked back at the dock and saw the scene on the left: That’s our engineer at the time, Don Karcher, standing in front of the van – as we steamed off into Lake Michigan. I started begging anyone on deck in a uniform to turn the ferry around because we had left the van and all of our gear on shore. The waiter I was pleading with explained that the vessel was so old that, after they loaded half of the vehicles, they had to sail into the harbor and turn around so the rest could be loaded through a different door. Whew! With that problem solved, we enjoyed a few beers on deck and sailed to Michigan.
