yeah. the controversy about this fight, it all for nothing. leonard won close but clear and in large part due to hagler dumb attempt to outbox leonard when he should have been pressuring leonard like he did in later in the fight. leonard won, hagler lost. having said that, leonard is no fool, he wanted no part of hagler back around 1982, it wasnt until leonard saw how much hagler struggled with mugabi, where he got enough courage to fight hagler because he knew if he fought the perfect fight, he could win, and he did and the rest is history.
I've made the point many times that Hagler was his own worst enemy, those first 4 rounds he threw away was just plain stupid & all in the quest to get Leonards respect & as if Leonard gave a ****. If Hagler wanted to lose those first 4 rounds then he would have been best served by jumping on Leonard & just whack away non-stop regardless as Leonard could'nt hurt him & who knows he may have got 1/2 of those rounds + Leonard would have been gassed out by the 8th & stopped on a TKO. I've always maintained that Leonard did'nt deserve to win it, but Marvin deserved to lose it. He's no one to blame but himself by foisting that charlatan Leonard onto us when he should have just run the conman down, he could have, he should have, but he blew it, so morally i've not one ounce of sympathy for Hagler as he brought it all on himself & he should have known that the system was loaded against him, for ****s sake that **** of a judge Jose Juan Guerra had it 118-110 with Leonard 8 points up. Leonard never ever ever gave anyone a re-match if he thought that there would be as much as a 20% risk, ****in scoundral.
That sums up my view on the fight perfectly. As much as I want to score it for Hagler, I just can't. For some reason I just dislike Ray Leonard, not as a fighter obviously, but something about him just pisses me off.
There aint no trend, enough with the sour grapes please, Leonard won fair & square.... time to get over this ****. :rofl
That my score too, Marv just left himself too much to do by giving away 5 of the first 6 rds, far too much to do vs a fighter Leonard`s quality, far too much.
How did you feel when Leonard wound up the right hand then popped Duran as clean as you like with the left in rd 7 of their 2nd fight ? Must have pissed you off
Hagler didn't throw away the first four rounds. He won two of those rounds. Leonard held during much of round two and Hagler blocked most of the shots. Leonard land a few slapping punches, but that was it. He held and hit quite a few times, but Hagler covered up. Hagler landed counter shots effectively - some quick counter hooks - and pounded to the body while Leonard held. Close, but Hagler's round. 10-9. I am not going to narrate round three. It was clearly Hagler's round 10-9. The first round only had one signiicant event, which allowed Leonard to barely claim the round. Round four was close, but Leonard edged it with a some success early and one significant combination late. Hagler landed some shots, as well. The round could be reasonable scored even. Ray's low punching should have been policed better, especially the bolo shot that excited everybody. Blatant foul that shot was. So Hagler and Leonard split the first four rounds. You will have to find several rounds for Leonard from 5-12 to make a case for him having won this fight. Good luck with that.
I often wonder if many of the people that score the fight for Leonard understand what the term "effective punching" means.
All the so called Leonards fans ive ever encountered actually ar'nt real boxing fans as such, the've all jumped on the media wagon, you can also see Leonard fans in large numbers at Michael Jackson/Barry Manilow concerts or supporting footie teams like Manchester Utd if yer get me drift. There outsiders & not really mainstream & an example of this was 20 years ago when i went to the 3rd Leonard/Duran fight in Vegas, about 400 flew from the UK & amoungst them were 2 couples who were there to see Leonard, now during a chat on the plane it came out that neither of the blokes new that Duran had beaten Leonard in Montreal, one called me a liar & that they'd only fought once, he offered to bet me $1K, i said OK fine & i told him politly that i would collect & as a bonus i would smash out all of his teeth after the fight, he was terrified for 7 days & ****ed off on an earlier flight home, yer see, thats the sort of ****s yer dealing with:yep i'am not or ever have been what you would call violent but these creeps make yer want too defend yerself if yer get me drift Thats why i pay them no heed:smoke
The fight was a fake. Hagler gripes about the decision but has himself to blame for taking part in such an obvious fake. Both of them played pitty-pat and both left the ring without so much as a scratch. Mayweather and DeLaHoya did an even worse "remake" of the debacle 20 years later ! And the fans buy into it because they are sold on the "personalities" and all the hullyboo. It's pathetic. And, yes, of course it comes down to money.
Hagler should've gone for the 15 round distance, but instead, suffered the consequences.Leonard was also closer to his prime than Hagler was.
Of course you're biased. You know you love Leonard. We know it. This talk about Ray having the style to beat hagler is nonsense becuase f it were true, Ray would have come right out and done it in 82. Why didnt he? Because he was scared shitless of getting knocked out, that's why. Talking that smack "I can beat Hagler" after the Mugabi fight. Ray Leonard did commentary for Hagler's fights since his first defense. Why didnt he say it during his prime? Because he was afraid Hagler would say "okay then sign the contract" In fact, Marvelous said it to his face after the Obel fight. Leonard was uncomfortable and turned his head to the side because Marvin didnt fit into his plans for another 5 years. That's what happens when you have a yellow streak running down your back. I personally dont believe his excuse that his eye kept him from fighting. it didnt keep him from fighting later in his career. The only thing that kept him from the likes of Hagler and later on, Nunn, both of who could kick his ass, was a lack of confidence
This was clearly obvious, especially in the track and field department. Hagler was slow. His timing was off. He put in a workman-like effort, but nothing spectacular. He clearly won, but it was frustrating that he didn't do away with the pesky gnat that was flittering around the ring. I have heard a lot about Hagler supposedly trying to box Leonard. Hagler is a boxer. We saw him doing what he usually did. It was business as usual. His aggressive tactic against Minter and Hearns and a few others were departures from his style, and I don't know that this tactic would have worked against Leonard. So Hagler did what he usually did, go about methodically destructing his opponent, only this time he much slower than usual because, frankly, he didn't have it any more. He was done with the Mugabi fight. This was not a case of Hagler losing because his ego told him to outbox Leonard to prove a point. People who say that reveal that they know Hagler mostly from his latter years as the declining warrior and are ignorant of the total Hagler canon.