How past it was Mugabi when he faced Norris

Yeah, I definitely saw him as a broken man after Hagler. He looked damn good that night, and showed some real ability beforehand. He was a natural counter puncher who hit with dynamite. Sure he showed weaknesses in some fights, but I think he was on the way to being close to elite with some more careful match making.

I won’t say he’d have ever really been elite, but perhaps not far off. I don’t think any fighter who ever had greatness in them would be so thoroughly ruined by one loss.

Still, Hagler was the single worst guy to run into for someone who fashioned themself as that type of alpha male.

 

Was that the fight Mugabi lost because of a thumb in the eye or was that one of his other losses? It’s been so long I can’t remember. Going off memory I remember one fight Mugabi looked good but got stopped because of the thumb in the eye, in a bout where Mugabi requested the open thumbed gloves. It was the Norris fight right? I should google before I post lol

 

I think the thumb in the eye fight is the duane thomas fight

 

Hagler had pummeled Mugabi he was never the same after the beating. Meldrick Taylor wasnt either after JCC pounded on him despite almost losing.

 

After Jackson wasted Norris, the odds Norris would ever make the Hall of Fame, if you polled anyone back then, would've been astronomical.

Norris, at the time, was basically an ESPN fighter. He was 21-2. He had his own local fan base. But he had a number of close outings, and once he stepped up he was wiped out.

When they announced Mugabi was going to fight Norris, too, I expected the same result as the Jackson fight. I think if you went back and looked at the Boxing Mags at the time, I think most would say the same.

In hindsight, Mugabi was 10 years into his pro career. And who knows how old he actually was at that point. The ages of Ugandan boxers weren't exactly finely kept records back then.

Mugabi certainly wasn't in his prime when he fought Norris. That would've been back around 84 when he was fighting Green and Fletcher. He looked really sharp and powerful then. In the 90s, not so much.

Norris really took it to him, though. I wouldn't discredit Norris's win over him in any way by claiming Mugabi was damaged goods or anything. Nobody was picking Norris before the fight, as I recall.

 

LLoyd Honeyghan was talking about being in Mickey Duff's stable back in the mid to late eighties and he described Mugabi as a robot insofar as he did everything perfectly.

Lloyd said that he would have to work and practise but Mugabi could be shown something and master it instantly. It took a heck of a boxer to get that level of modesty from Lloyd at the time. He spoke about Mugabi with something approaching awe.

I think he was far declined from the mid 80s version but not a total shell. Somewhere between the two. We think he was worse than he was because of how Norris utterly took him apart. But that's to forget that when Terry won, he tended to win big. Not many fighters looked as sharp as Terry did when he won; fast, fluid, powerful. Hypothetically, he could fight the same fighters as ATGs and look better in victory than them. It's just he couldn't always cope when he wasn't dominating and that's what sets the ATGs, who may have been less gifted, apart from him.

 

The same as what though? He either blasted everyone out or he gave Marvin a good fight and yet was knocked out, and that proved what? He really has an incomplete career. He never beat a really top fighter. He gave one a good fight, but he didn't beat one. How was he ever that great or very good. I loved his knockouts and he went for it. Against Marvin he actually calmed down and set his punches up more. We have him in a good fight against Marvin on one of Marvin's bad nights. It was a cold and rainy night with the Sandoval fight sort of messing with everyone's mind on that night, and Marvin had not fought in 1 year. And Marvin really was thinking about retiring after having the big win against Hearns and not getting the Leonard fight ever. Marvin at that point thought he was not going to fight another legend like Duran or Hearns. Even Gil Clancy was saying during the Mugabi fight that Marvin's left hand was not straight and looping more than before, as though the rust was really affecting him and maybe not sparring much because he broke his nose during sparring, which postponed the fight to March-from November.

 

This is the answer.