Hamed never landed as many as Morales did on McCullough. True. But Hamed was a serious puncher and McCullough took his punches without much problem. Just because the Hamed fight wasn't a war doesn't mean McCullough's chin wasn't tested. Because it was, on a few ocassions. Also, McCullough was a natural bantamweight. McCullough faced naturally bigger guys who were awesome punchers at their weights. If Hagler was to equal that, he'd probably need to fight a very good puncher at super-middleweight and a great puncher at light-heavyweight. Hagler was physically, equal or larger, than the punchers he faced.
Actually in the opening round of Hagler Hearns. When Hearns unleashed that right hand on Hagler,it actually hit him high on the head,not on the chin,because Hagler wisely kept his chin down.. Had that right hand caught Marvin on the chin?? who knows.
I think Hagler was hurt several times, and pretty seriously by Mugabi. But Marvin did what he had always said he would do in that situation: fight through it. If he hadn't, Mugabi would have won that night. Can you imagine the confidence he would have felt if Hagler had shown that the punches were hurting him? There were signs that Hagler was bothered considerably. He didn't throw his left hand laser straight as he usually did; he looped it, to get his head out of the way of counters. He went from leftie to orthodox constantly, and I think that was due to Mugabi's body punching. A lot of little signs all through the fight.
I don't think that was a sign of him getting hurt, it was a sign of him look for what was working and what wasn't. He was fighting a very game Mugabi and had to use varied tactics to beat him. Marvin often times switched from southpaw to orthodox, he did it frequently against Duran aswell. I think it was more of a sign of Marvin having difficulties figuring out an effective way to fight Mugabi. Hagler was also deteriorating by the time he fought Mugabi, notice he didn't really throw his left lazer straight in the Leonard or Hearns fights either, and Leonard didn't shake him up. His punches became a bit more looped towards the mid-late 80s. His jab was still superb throught out though.
Good points. Hagler operating at 65-70% of his peak efficiency still gets the job done against serious threats. The Hearns and Mugabi fights are two of my favorites because he was starting to deteriorate. It didn't showcase Marvin at his greatest skills wise, but was unbelievable in terms of toughness, heart and chin. I love the KO Magazine cover with Hearns on it saying "Hagler's shakin' like a leaf on a tree.". He shook off shots that would leave most shattering in their wake and then broke him off and left him for dead. I'd of loved to see Ketchel/Greb/Monzon vs Hagler.
that was due to physical decline. Hagler's faced big punchers before and remained sharp The beating he took from Mugabi did show on his face though. I personally think Marvin was finished after the fight
Bill, I thought his left still looked pretty sharp in the Hearns fight. He seemed to have alot of snap on it as well as for the Hamsho fight. vs Mugabi, you could see his only real weapon left was his right jab
It didn't seem as sharp to me in the Hearns fight, then again, it's not the best example because he was more or less just hitting Tommy with whatever he could wherever he could, didn't really focus on much other than knocking Tommy's head off. It's been a while since I've seen the Hamsho fight (second one), but I remember him boxing well and taking Hamsho apart with educated punches. Going off of what I remember, Marvin was still very close to prime that fight.
Every time I watch the fight I am amazed at the way Marvin handled a big uppercut from Mugabi (I forget what round). He got caught with it, and instead of being wobbled, intimidated, shaky, etc, he just looked pissed off and went about business.