Rocky Marciano > Marvelous Marvin Hagler P4P

True, the Hill win is a great one. That said, Hill also happened to be the best stylistic match up for Hearns at the weight at the time. We're talking pitch perfect. Like, Hearns was the Norton to Hill's Ali type of perfect. Not taking away credit from that specific win, but it doesn't mean Hearns was capable of doing that to many other notable LHWs at the time. Beating that version of SRL doesn't say much either.

I can just as easily point to him losing to Barkley again right after he beat Hill, and all the soft competition he faced before them, indicating that he couldn't consistently operate at the world level anymore and had to take it easy. Point is, Hearns clearly wasn't the same fighter he was at 147-154 at 160 and above. I can understand why someone would perhaps think it was Hagler that broke him, and that this version of 160 Hearns was just an unlucky H2H problem, but:

A. The evidence isn't there,

and B. Moore is still the superior win anyway.

Because Marciano broke him, for good. He was clearly past it coming in to the Marciano bouts, but a guy that was an uncalled KD away from arguably beating a prime Harold Johnson is clearly still a quality operator. Certainly not the same guy that went 10-13 afterwards, especially considering how he definitely looked the part vs Marciano. We're talking about the Charles of the Marciano fights, not the one after them. That's clearly a different fighter.

Duran was the most bipolar Boxer ever after Montreal. One moment he loses to Laing, then almost beats Hagler, then loses to a guy like Sims, then pulls it off vs Barkley, etc etc. Cherry picking fights he looked good in doesn't tell us the whole picture.

Charles was more consistent in the lead up to Marciano. His last 4 bouts were him beating 2 current (at the time) ranked contenders, losing to the number 1 HW contender, and almost beating Harold Johnson, no shame in either losses. He had also taken revenge for his prior loss to Rex Layne a bit before that as well. And of course, Charles is a greater fighter than Duran and was much closer to Marciano in size than Duran was to Hagler.

Yeah, Duran had more left in the tank than Charles did, but that doesn't matter. Moore had like 10 more years left in him than Charles did despite being 5 years older, yet Charles is 3-0 against him. An old Pacquiao lost to an old Mayweather, but Mayweather retired almost immediately afterwards and Pac had a solid 5 years left in him (plus Barrios but you get the point). Fighters age differently, you know this.

Hagler does have some solid depth to him. But the problem is the quality of that depth. Ignoring the fact that Marciano's best 3 wins are better than Hagler's best 3 (which in most comparisons is enough to put one fighter over another, just look at SRL), Hagler's contenders are just kinda repleceable, as harsh as it sounds.

Look at Mugabi for example. Deadly up and coming puncher sure, but he literally beat nobody. And I usually refrain from saying that when criticising a guy as it's usually disrespectful to his actual accomplishments, but good Lord did Mugabi beat up on a bunch of stiffs his whole career. The flaws in his game also prevent me from thinking he was some sort of unfortunate talent that underachieved. Same with Seales, he was a gold medalist, but he beat nobody of worth as a pro. In fact, I'm pretty sure Seales was never top 10 ranked. Even ranked guys like Scypion and Hart aren't really any better.

You could probably pick a random guy SRR beat that you haven't heard about, replace him with one of those guys, and nothing would chance. Some Vic Dellicurti type of guy. You take them off Hagler's resume and the only decrease you see is purely in terms of numbers, not quality. Guys like Minter, Antuofermo, Monroe and Hamsho are clearly step ups, but they aren't special enough to overcome the massive difference between Marciano and Hagler's top 3 wins, especially considering how Rocky also has guys like Layne, LaStarza and Matthews on his ledger.

 

That is a flawed comparison by nature.

1. It directly ignores the specific and direct comparison of resumes between the 2 fighters in place for abstract divisional comparisons.

2. What if Hagler isn't a top 4 Middleweight ? What if it's just another one of these prestige rankings because Hagler is a big name ? I took a look at McGrain's top 50 Middleweights list. And he, along with Hopkins, are the only ones in the top 10 with absolutely zero wins over fellow top 50 Middleweights. Steele, LaMotta and Tiger at 11, 12 and 13 also have several, each. Fred Apostoli (16) has at least one, so do Teddy Yarosz at 17, Mickey Walker at 18 and Tiger Flowers at 20.

I'm not gonna go ahead and say Hagler is not a top 10 Middleweight without careful consideration. But I do find the ease with which he is ranked so highly to be dubious and worthy of questioning.

3. Hagler ranking higher among the Middleweights H2H compared to Marciano at Heavyweight doesn't say who's the better fighter. Hagler is an 160 lbs man fighting other ATG 160 lbers. Marciano is an 185 lbs man having to fight ATG's that mostly range from 210-220 and in a few instances in the 240-250 range.

 

Yeah, I find the first part odd myself. But it's not my list, so I don't know. Just pointing out how it's weird that so many guys's top wins at MW absolutely thrash Hagler's but are ranked significantly lower.

I don't exclusively rank fighters just based on how many great fighters they beat, but it is by far the most important criteria for me. Without trying to create exact percentages for how much I value certain accomplishments, resume feels like it should be roughly 80% of it. I value stuff like longevity, activity, title defences, weight classes conquered and size disadvantage being overcome.

I give more attention to the latter than the rest, as it directly affects the quality of a win (beating a merely good fighter if you're 158 lbs and he's 195 lbs can easily be as impressive as beating a great guy the same size as you). The rest ? They're just brownie points, really. I'm the type of guy that would have preferred if Inoue had beaten the elite guys at 115 like Chocolatito, Estrada, Rungvisai, Cuadras etc than if he cleans out all of the padestrian 122 contenders right now and makes 15 defences.

For another example, I'm not gonna rank Veeraphol Sahaprom or Orlando Canizales over Fighting Harada at Bantamweight because they had 14 and 16 defences to Harada's 4 or because they lasted a few more years as champions at the weight. Harada just beat the better fighters by far, so it ends there. You prove you're the greatest by beating the greatest consistently. So the GOAT is the guy that beat the all around best competition possible without too many failures along the way.

I usually don't resort to H2H as I could very well be wrong (unless it's something like Marciano vs Lewis), unless I'm so torn that I just have to choose.

See, that's a paradox. That’s like asking who was the first guy to make good pizza, and then wondering why there weren’t already good pizzas to compare it to.

Greatness doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It’s two parts:

1. Dominance over your contemporaries
2. The historical perspective that comes after

Take John L Sullivan for example. Some people call him the first modern great because he was the first recognized HW champ under the Queensberry rules. Did he beat other greats ? Not in the sense we use now, but he crushed everybody available, the American champion in a bare knuckle bout and the English champ in a gloved one, and became the standard other fighters had to measure up to. His greatness wasn’t proven by slaying giants, he was the giant everyone else got measured against.

That's why nobody ranks Sullivan anymore (well that, and his career being a mess of gloved and bare knuckled Boxing, making him a terror to rank), but just about everyone after him. He set the standard, a fighter became great by beating him, the rest came naturally. Same goes with the lower divisions. Fitzsimmons became great because he beat Dempsey, the first MW champ, and Corbett, who beat Sullivan. That's how it goes.