Are Hagler's title challengers underrated?

He showed lot of skill in the McCallum fights, especially the first one.

I also think he did a good work against Nunn. Nunn won the most or all of the first six, but landed very few meaningful shots. As he started to slow down, Toney took over and eventually ended him.

You probably will reference this as Toney lucking out with one punch, but I van say from the off that that's not my take of it at all. Toney had clearly taken over the fight by the time he landed that terrific left hook.

And he countered McCallum like no one bar perhaps Kalambay ever did.

So that's three fights against absolutely top opposition. Good enough?

Benitez became punch drunk at a much younger age with way fewer fights. Didn't he have a good defense either?

Toney has been a pro for close to 30 years, with over 80 fights I think, from 154 to HW... That will often damage a fighter.

Hearns also has slurring speech, without fighting big punching HWs. Jesus, just the thought of Hearns facing Rahman and Peter well into his 30's sends a chill down my spine. That could have resulted in worse things than even brain damage.

Nunn, the three fights with McCallum, Barkley, Williams, Jirov, Holyfield, Peter and Ruiz off the top of my head. in all these fights he showed skills that were clearly superior to those of your average contender.

I haven't said Hearns couldn't slip a punch. Most pro fighters can slip a punch. I've said he wasn't as proficient at it as for example Toney. Or even Kalule.

Saying that Ronaldinho was a better dribbler than Beckham, doesn't mean that Beckham didn't dribble past a defender on occasion.

Now, tell me which of Hagler's contenders you think had comparable technical defensive skills to Toney's? And to McCallum's and Kalambay's, since you suggested they were not better than Hagler's contenders.

 

In my opinion, the two McCallum fights were among Toney's best at middleweight, but he still looked sloppy and often off balance for much of the fight.

The Nunn fight was a great win.
I don't think Toney looked particularly "slick".


The other Toney fights you reference are years after, and several pounds above, Toney's middleweight prime.
3 of them are at HEAVYweight, 1 is at CRUISER. Those happened in 2003 to 2006.
They aren't at all relevant to my point about middleweights Nunn, McCallum, Kalambay, Toney coming along in the years immediately post-Hagler and how they'd fare in they'd come along 5 to 10 years earlier.
I'm not putting a 200+ pound juiced up Toney in with Hagler or Hagler's challengers, and I'm not assessing Toney's middleweight skills on how he fought against heavyweights more than a decade later.
Maybe he got "slicker" with experience, I don't know. I haven't even checked, it's irrelevant.


Yes, Hearns would be KO'd by any heavyweight. It's irrelevant. Hearns had a weak chin for a middleweight. Toney had a granite chin for a middleweight.


Marvin Hagler would have had little difficulty hitting Kalambay, McCallum or Toney, and those guys would have been reduced to routine challenger status.

 

Like he had little difficulty in hitting past prime versions of Duran and Leonard?

I just don't agree with that. I think you're way off base.

And if you can't see that McCallum, Kalambay, Nunn and Toney had skills superior of those of typical contender I don't think you know your boxing. Either that or you are being contrarian to a fault.

Their resumes and how they look on film put them above the likes of Roldan (who Nunn beat with less problems than Marvin btw) and most of the others.

 

If that's the worst you can throw at Hagler it further proves his superiority.
I can pull up considerable poor showings by James Toney, getting hit - and actually beat ! - by David Tiberi and whoever else, but the standard reply is "Toney was inconsistent" or some excuse about his conditioning.
Kalambay gets iced with one southpaw left and it's either because Nunn was so great or just "a fluke".
Nunn didn't exactly look too hot against a past-prime Marlon Starling either.

Hagler v. the others : Take them at their same relative level, take at their best, take them at their average, or take them at their worst. Hagler is a class above.

No, not everyone can be champion. Contender-level is relative to who the champion is. If they were in Hagler's era they'd be contenders. They would have been routine defences.

Except when they don't look good on film (and that's plenty of times) you seem to look the other way and ignore the fact.

Roldan lost to Nunn almost 5 years after he lost to Hagler .... and Nunn was losing to Frank Liles about 5 years after that.
This is how it goes.

 

The worst I can throw at Hagler is his losses to Watts and Monroe.

But the difference between us is that I don't take Hagler's poorer showings as proof that Nunn, Toney, McCallum and Kalambay would have an easy night with him. I don't think any of them would have. Haven't even claimed they would beat him.

I only say they were better than Sibson, Vito, Minter, Roldan, Mugabi and Duran (at MW).

It is you who take their poor showings (which are mostly against each other) as proof that he would have a routine night with them, even though their resumes imo suggests otherwise.

These four fighters have a total at 2 losses to others than each other at MW.

Your argument seems to be that they are poor because they lost to each other. But seeing that they were superior to other contenders, a more reasonable conclusion is that they lost to each other because they faced a stronger opponent than the usual contender, since they beat those other contenders.

I think they taken together looked poor on film once at MW (against other than each other) - Toney against Tiberi.

Then they were other fights where they didn't look great on film. But I haven't seen a fighter ever that always looks great on film.

If your criteria for being seen as being above routine contender level is to always look great on film - then please tell me which fighters you think always look great on film and therefore would qualify as above routine contender. This is not a rhetorical question. I want you to tell me.

For my money, McCalllum and Kalambay are about as close as I've seen fighters almost always look very good to great on film.

They seldom ended fights with spectacular KO's, but they almost always showed excellent form, defence and ring generalship.

Their rematch is probably the highest aggregate skill level I've seen.

 

I'm not sure that statement stands up, really. Hagler didn't find it difficult to hit Duran, at all. In truth, he was also finding Leonard.

When Hagler decided to turn the heat up against Duran, he just did so, without issue. When the clearly slowed-up version of Hagler decided to stop playing around in the Leonard fight, he was landing with regularity, to the extent that it remains a disputed decision, with many a professional observer giving it to Hagler.

Again, neither of these bouts are much of a tarnish on Hagler. These losses occurred, as he was making his way towards contendership and testing himself away from home, in what was a then renowned Philly scene - quite a hotspot for Middleweights.

That he went 37 fights undefeated at Middleweight, after that; knocking out Munroe (twice) and Watts, along the way; in a run that included 14 World Championship Title bouts, going 13-0-1, before the decision went against him in his final fight, really leaves the two defeats you mention way behind him; paled into relatively ancient history.

 

When Hagler was absolutely on point, say for example in the Minter and Sibson fights he was a absolute destroyer. Against Hearns, he felt the best Hearns had to offer, figured he could take it and just steamrollered him. I honestly feel he carried Duran somewhat and still won comfortably. Against Leonard he was nowhere near his best and it was a bad matchup at that point in his career.
The point I'm trying to make is at his absolute peak, none of the like of Nunn, Kalambay or Toney would be able to hang with him. His right hand jab was a face wrecker, he could switch stance and look comfortable doing it, fought well on the back foot, loads of lateral movement and let's not forget the titanium cranium.
Hagler was a very cerebral boxer shown by his excellent ring generalship and would have known full well he would have to be on point. Nunn was a supremely slick boxer but, do you really see him seeing out a fight for a distance win without getting tagged hard at least once, and if that happened, Hagler would not fail to finish him. I think a fight with Toney would be a war with Hagler winning by UD or late TKO because he would be the busier fighter. I feel Mccallum would be Haglers sternest test as his body attack could cause anyone nightmares.
I feel that Hagler would just be outright dominant in any era with only SRR, Monzon and the like giving any sort of argument. For me as a consequence of his greatness, the argument about his level of competition is kind of irrelevant. H2H he us top 3 middleweight of all time with a strong argument for being no.1.

 

What a great post! :good

I agree with it entirely.

With particular reference to the Minter bout, I would add that this win was one of the most clinical boxing ring destructions I have witnessed.

Regardless of what people think of Minter's level, Hagler's stark demonstration of excellence had made his preeminence all too clear.

 

I didn't say they weren't better.
I said Hagler probably would have reduced them to routine challengers and they wouldn't be rated as highly.

Nunn and Kalambay were, for a while, clearly superior to some "other contenders" at middleweight. That is true.

Toney and McCallum at the weight aren't so much.
There are a few guys Toney didn't dominate, at least one gift decision, and maybe a couple more close and disputed ones, and he fought very few contenders so there's no room there to give him a pass. The resume is thin.
McCallum has a ridiculously close win over Herol Graham. He was impressive against Michael Watson, but the search for seasoned middleweight contenders on his resume stops there.

Of course, maybe we can throw Herol Graham AND Reggie Johnson in this illustrious group, and if Graham's in Julian Jackson should be in, and turn the "fab four" into a "fab seven".

I think being a routine contender is tested by how you do against the champion.

 

So you're saying they were better, but would have fared exactly the same? Perhaps someone else can make sense of that.

But ok, we are apparently agreed on that they were better than most of Hagler's contenders.

As for how they'd do against Hagler...

Nunn definitely had the skills and style to trouble Marvin. The big question for me is if he'd last the distance.

I'd make Kalambay a favorite over Hagler if it wasn't for his trouble with southpaws.

Toney and McCallum against Marvin are toss ups for me really.


But that's all purely hypothetical of course.

What I can say firmly is I rank Marvin some way ahead of all of them at MW since he achieved more, but I also see them as substantially above mere average contender quality.

I don't think the win over Graham was nearly as close as the judges' have it and I also think he won the Toney rematch. So with that in mind he has wins over Graham, a green Collins, Watson, Toney and Kalambay, and a loss to Kalambay and a draw to Toney at MW. It's not ATG stuff in terms of resume, but a good one. Better than routine contender. And more than that I think he showed a high to excellent quality in all the those fights save the first one against Kalambay.

Toney really should have lost to Tiberi and McCallum (rematch) imo, so yes his resume is a bit thin at the weight. Only looking at his resume it could perhaps be argued he was a run of the mill contender type that just had one big night (against Nunn). I think the film of him shows him to be of a higher quality than that, though, even though he was still developing when at MW and some way from his peak.

Well, they all beat champions...

 

He was one of the most dedicated fighters and greatest competitors the sport has ever seen. He didn't play around or give away rounds for fun. That's just a patently ludicrous notion to me.

I agree that they are not much tarnish on him. And that those losses probably is the worst you can throw at him shows what a great fighter he was. One of the absolutely top MWs ever in my book. Perhaps the top.

 

I think the notion I was putting forward is that Hagler didn't find it hard to hit Duran. Either way, for whatever motive (and this can be clearly seen in watching the bout), Hagler sat back; then demonstrated he could take control; then took his foot off the gas again and then took control again, nearing the end of their bout. Personally, I don't think this can be disputed.

The reasons why are debatable. I don't think it was for fun. However, despite his dedication and competitiveness, Hagler was also extremely image-conscious.

Having had this bout - his first 'Superfight' - scrutinised and implied as being a mismatch, during the build-up, I don't think it's ludicrously inconceivable that this played on Hagler's mind. Sub-consciously or otherwise, Hagler took a tentative approach to Duran. The cause for this approach will always remains open to question.

Agreed.



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It happens all the time. I think Ernie Terrell was better than George Chuvalo, but prime Ali spanked them both over 15 rounds.

I think the gulf between prime Hagler and Nunn, Kalambay, Toney, McCallum is wider than the gulf between those four and the best of Hagler's challengers.

It's all hypothetical, yes.

So did Minter and Antuofermo (they were absolutely undisputed middleweight champions).
Duran and Hearns won the WBC middleweight title subsequently.

But to Hagler, in cold hindsight, they presented routine challenges.

 

I think it was just because Duran was the smartest, most experienced and most technically skilled opponent he had faced up until that point (and perhaps during his whole career). Roberto managed to confound Hagler. That's what great fighters do. And I don't think Hagler dished out any heavy punishment or even landed that many really good punches. I do think he won by a large margin points-wise, though.

I think it's almost comical why it's made out like som mystery why Hagler displayed some of his worst ring generalship against his two smartest opponents. It could have something to do with being "image conscious" or chemtrails or whatever, or it could have to with that he faced his two smartest and most skillful opponents.

 

Professional boxers have always carried opponents, from time to time. For various reasons.
It's entirely open to question why Hagler fought Duran in that manner. I wouldn't rule out him carrying Duran on purpose at all.
At the other end of the spectrum, it is possible Hagler was just in some way 'over-awed' or 'star struck' or 'psyched out' by little Duran, and/or lacked the skills or brain to do better than he did.
Let's say the truth is somewhere in between, since we will never know.

Even so, I didn't think the fight was close at all.