Hagler always called out welterweights, but when a bigger fighter called him out

Marvin WOULD fight at 154 if he were fighting today. That's one of the things that irritates me about fantasy match ups between Haglar and Taylor, Hopkins, Calzaghe, Pavlik, et. No one ever stops to think about the fact that for the vast majority of Marvin's career all those guys would have been light heavies. Today Marvin would be a light middle. The size difference between Haglar and a modern middle or super middle is enormous.

 

Mr. Marvel is spot on. Hagler wasn't a very big MW. His lean muscularity made him appear bigger than he really was. Hearns, Obel and Roldan were naturally bigger and could easily fight at heavier weights while Marvin probably couldn't. If we're going to critisize Hagler for not fighting light heavies then let's do the same for Monzon who was bigger than Marvin and could've easily fought a couple of fights at LHW. Carlos feasted on welters as well and the size difference was more significant than Marvin's was against Leonard and Hearns who was actually bigger than Marvin. I find it odd that anyone would try to devalue one of the greatest MW's of all time. If we're going to put Monzon and Greb on a pedestal then we have to put Hagler there as well.

 

When did Michael or any other bigger fighter ever call out Marv? I don't recall this challenge ever being issued by Spinks, and the idea of a prospective matchup wasn't acknowledged by Hagler before Mike unified the LHW Title and upset the Holmes apple cart. (If you can provide documentation of such a challenge from Spinks that was published at the time, it would sure be appreciated.) Eddie Mustafa Muhammad and Matt weren't interested in meeting to unify that title. Eddie's ambition was to aim for heavyweight gold.

As for Saad Muhammad, when he was in midreign, he was most interested in taking on Mike. Otherwise, Matt was fully preoccupied with fielding the numerous challenges coming his way. (Matt was the marquee name in the LHW division during his championship run, and didn't need to issue any challenges with so many contenders gunning for him.)

Mike was the undisputed LHW king at the time he weighed 170 for his defense against Sears. Hagler bombed out Hearns two months later. If these two were to ever square off, the best time might have been the summer of 1985, but Marv was aiming for Monzon's divisional record of defenses by then. (By 1987, he should have broken that mark easily and been retired. A single defense each in 1985 and 1986 didn't cut it though. I think he could have defended his championship thrice yearly until reaching 15 defenses. He only did this in 1981 and 1983 though.)

Throughout Ray's hiatus from the sport (while working as a broadcast analyst), Marv was telling him on camera (for example, during their review of Hagler/Hearns) that, "Your retirement cheated the fans out of a great matchup between us!" So even if SRL had remained permanently retired after Bruce Finch, Marv would have always considered SRL to be the one that got away. (At least they might have remained good friends.) Without SRL in the picture, Hagler's only objective was to break Monzon's record and establish himself as a great champion. Moving up in weight had nothing to do with any of that.

Penalizing Marv for having the self-discipline to stay in shape and maintain a consistent weight while remaining undefeated for over a decade in one of the toughest divisions of the era seems incredibly skewed to me.

One bigger man who did move down after competing at the championship level as a lightheavyweight was Murray Sutherland, but a draw against Robbie Sims (which Sutherland arguably won), and decision losses to JB Williamson, Hearns and Kinchen cost him a shot at Hagler before Murray finally became IBF SMW Champion in early 1984.

Along with most fans, I liked Sutherland immensely, regarded him as a delightful character, and thought he might be a tremendous steamroller at 160, but the move down in weight didn't seem to provide any particular additional advantage in strength or punch resistance. Ramos decked him at this weight, and Hearns boxed his ears off, as he remained frustratingly inconsistent and unpredictable. (As a measure of Sutherland's popularity, he drew many of the cheers against Sims, and that was on Robbie's turf.)

 

fair point but he did move up.

I still think that you cant criticize Hopkins for fighting Trinidad and DLH while in the same vein conveniently letting hagler skate on not moving up.

 

I for one do not put Hagler down at all, he was a very great middleweight champ.Hagler should be bracketed with the best of the 160 pounders.P4P
Greb is above him ,and most everyone else, imo.

 

Hagler lists his birth year as 1954, too. Nobody believes that's accurate. He's not 5' 9 1/2". You can see that by looking at the film.

How does Roldan's listed height negate the fact that Hagler didn't avoid big middleweights, a fact proven by Obel and Hearns?

To beat my argument every example I gave would need to be demonstrably false.

I am wasting my time commenting in this ridiculous thread.

 

I was not trying to" beat your argument" I was merely pointing out ,you were wrong about Roldan being a huge middleweight.
What you are wasting your time about is trying to engage in an argument with me about something that clearly does not matter.
I think my other post proves how highly I rate Hagler, you appear to be somewhat over sensitive. atsch

 

Trying to psychologize the matter doesn't help, mcvey.

These points remain:

Hagler ducked no one. He cleaned out the division. In fact, he cleaned out the division before he was recognized as champion.

Middleweight champions have often taken on top welterweights (Greb, Garcia, LaMotta, Robinson, Fullmer, Tiger, Monzon, Hopkins, etc).

Hagler faced big middleweights, some of whom went on to fight at light heavyweight.

 

Inventing words like, psychologize doesn't help.
I beleive you have missed my point entirely I never said Hagler did not fight big middle weights,I said Roldan was not one of them,and,at 5 foot 8in that is" demonstrably "true.:good

 

as previously mentioned, hagler was a strong middlewieght but not a big mw. he would not have fit well at 175. you gotta know where you belong. monzon was a very big middlewieght and he never moved up

 

Yes he fought ''big'' MIDDLEWEIGHTS this still does not negate the fact the he NEVER moved up .

 

Mcvey, do you know what Roldan even looks like? Height wasn't the issue here. Much like former welterweight champ, Carlos Baldomir, Juan Roldan was a wide (not fat) man. Built like a tree stump. He was huge, and not in the sense of height. So stop gloating about the fact that nobody has answered this point. I did, now continue your argument knowing that Roldan was huge in width and body structure, but not including height. Understand?

And by the way, this thread seemed interesting til I saw that it devolved into measuring contest. Keep measuring guys, keep wasting your own time over who is right about idiotic details. Who cares who is right? Accept some ****ing humility and move on. When you argue like this, you both sound wrong. I'm not going to name names, but the idiots will 'out' themselves. Unfortunately, there just might be too many idiots.

 

I always figured Marvin at about 5'9" ...he waqs not a huge middleweight but had a long reach and tremendous power.

 

Hagler is a legend for sure but if you wnat to be the greatest 160 pounder of all time then this is what you are up against-

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Until recently I was very stubborn about pre-Louis era fighters but as of late my interest has increased entirely.

Hence^^^^^^^^^:good:deal