By: Jim Amato

When you’re a professional heavyweight and you win forty of forty eight fights, chances are you could fight a little. Oregon’s Terry Hinke could fight. Although he would never reach the heavyweight ” A ” list, he was good enough to do well against some fairly good competition.

Terry turned pro in 1969 and quickly ran up a 21-0-2 record and was considered a good prospect. He suffered his first loss in 1971 being stopped by the capable Wendell Newton. A year and a half later Newton was good enough to lose a split decision to highly ranked Ron Lyle. In 1972 Hinke dropped a ten round verdict to journeyman Charlie Reno. In 1973 Hinke scored an important victory outscoring rugged Rodney Bobick.

In 1974 Terry was surprising halted by Charlie James. He bounced right back to beat Lou Bailey, Terry Daniels and Elmer Rush. Then he met Chuck Wepner. The bout saw Wepner penalized four points for an array of rule infringements. Nevertheless tough Chuck sent Terry down three times in the eleventh and the bout was stopped in Wepner’s favor. The win over Hinke helped Wepner toward securing a 1975 title shot against Muhammad Ali.

In 1976 Hinke was halted by the big South African, Mike Schutte. Terry would have one more fight and retire. His overall record was a respectable 40-5-2 with one No Contest. He scored thirty knockouts while being stopped himself on four occasions.