The all things technical thread.

Exactly, mate. :thumbsup

 

Even Arguello's worst enemy wouldn't wish a Leonard fight on him.

 

I think it's harder to be a right handed southpaw.

 

Duran fight seemed almost inevitable before Duran moved up. But i don't think a Leonard fight was ever that seriously on the cards. Arguello would've been three weights removed from his best weight. He only moved up for that record title attempt to his limit. I don't know why Arguello/Leonard was even brought up.

 

One last thing on Leonard. Just to debunk another myth.

Some feel Leonard took advantage of Hagler and made him fight in a 12 round fight. Something the masses suggest Hagler had NEVER done before. The reason Hagler conceded to this 12 round fight was for two BIG reasons. Hagler had fought three, yes three scheduled 12 rounds fights long before he met Leonard. He fought one against Juan Roldan in 1984, Tommy Hearns in 1985 and John Mugabi in 1986. How could he say NO to Leonard asking for a 12 round fight when his previous two fights were 12 rounders, especially when he and EVERYONE else thinks it's a cakewalk?

Something else people don't know. Ray leonard also gave Hagler 48 states of the Closed Circuit. Ray only kept the DC and Maryaland area. So after everything was done Hagler made about 25 million to fight Leonard. Ray only made about 14 million. So he sweentened the pot. That’s what you do when you want to fight somebody, you make the negotiations easier.

I apologise for waffling on about it so much, but it's something that always gets me going.

 

Agreed!

Ray intimidated Hagler in a weird way. Ray Leonard had legendary stamina. Everybody in the 80’s knew this. Look at all of his fights Benitez, the Duran loss, Hearns, even the rematch with Hearns and Ray finishes like a SOB. Hagler started slow because he wanted to have something in the tank and that cost him his title. Hagler was coming forward and missing like crazy for the most part. He didn't get into his rhythm from the start because he thought he could outbox the Sugarman. Big mistake.

 

It's called making adjustments. Which is what he had to do against Hearns once he realised Hearns is VERY difficult to outbox and isn't the same puncher in close as he is from distance and Leonard also had a bigger lung capacity. And yes his stamina was legendary, Hagler was aware of that as everyone in the 80's was.

 

I think there's more left handed orthodox that have been more effective and reached a higher level.

Incidently, they still discourage ams from turning southpaw. Which is a bit strange really. Most coaches are not comfortable holding the pads for a lefty for example.

Everything about that fight was a masterstroke by Leonard. Many people don't know this but Hagler turning orthodox for long periods in that fight had a lot to do with the mental games Leonard was playing before the fight.

Now, Hagler was no stranger to fighting out of that stance, but he wasn't as effective from it when he did it for long periods. Ray Leonard studied him and wanted him to turn orthodox at some points in this fight as that would make it easier for him.

So what he did was in every interview he would elude to and send out messages on how he was specifically training for a southpaw, how all these years he had Hagler in his mind and he had figured out everything about his southpaw stance and was working on it for years. He also said he had suprises for Hagler when he tried to press him. He made sure this got to Marvin in his camp aswell.

So with that in mind, it's my believe that Hagler tried to flip the switch and surprise Leonard by trying to not only outbox him but also fight out of a different stance to the one that Leonard was preparing for so along.

Leonard could not have known how effective those mindgames would be. He could not have known that Hagler would take the bait so easy, but it worked. He did a pysche job on him.

It didn't help that Hagler had terrible cornermen.