admire & respect Hagler R.I.P. but he absolutely does turn down mandatory challenge Herol Graham to fight non ranking Sugar Leonard. His only defend of title since over a year and he took non ranking superstar for money fight but refused deserving challenge and WBA had to stripped him because of it.
Why was Mugabi rated at all at middleweight other than crooked ratings ? Mugabi was a jr middleweight who feasted on jr. middleweights and a few ripe middleweights .. McCallum was the champ at 154 ...to me Mugabi was a TV draw and little more ..
Your last comment I agree with but as you know people do love punchers, and the 100 percent KO ratio does look good. So he was always gonna be hyped up.
You couldn’t have presented it more elegantly than you have done to illustrate Ali’s all encompassing dominance. Very well done. Even with the postponement of the Liston rematch from Nov64 to May65 Ali still rifled through 9 defences over a 3 year period since winning the title. The 63 ratings comprise 1 pre title opponent and 8 opponents against whom Ali defended. Unreal. I assume Cooper possibly wasn’t rated in the Top 10 when he rematched Ali in 1966 but Ali’s first match with Henry was a sufficiently compelling argument for a second go around. Machen’s career took a downturn during Ali’s reign but if Ali had more time and the public wanted it - Machen would be there. I believe Jones’ career meandered off course also - of course Ali had already beaten Doug already, controversy notwithstanding. A relatively more difficult fight but still a fight that Ali clearly won. At any rate, a rematch would’ve been fun at least to show how far Ali had come along since their 1963 fight - though Jones perhaps might’ve carried forward some stylistic challenges - ala Henry Cooper. @quintonjacksonfan or Ali? Or both? LOL.
Ali and Jones did box a 6-round exhibition in 1966 - by all accounts Jones was painfully outclassed. https://www.newspapers.com/clip/101710487/muhammad-ali-doug-jones/
