Where does Mike McCallum rank among the best MW?

No a guy like Monzon now he was overrated McCallum would batter him.....

 

This; Hagler avoided Graham the same way he avoided Curtis Parker.

 

That's not exactly fair sal.

Graham was a a top rated WBA contender, but more importantly had done enough to have genuinely earned a shot.

parker was never a factor like that.

Not that i think Hagler ducked him, he was just one of two or three contenders coming to the fore in the rankings at the wrong time when the Leonard fight was becoming a reality and Marv was mainly looking for a big payday or two to go out on.

In fact i wonder if he was even aware of him as a fighter.Graham was hardly a known fighter in America.Had he even been televised over there? Maybe the Mcguigan Cruz undercard fight? Which was a one round blowout over a can was the only one?.

that fight was pretty ridiculous really as it was meant to get him a bit of a profile in America, but barney eastwood completely failed to secure a meaningful opponent.

 

Fair enough, salient points as always.....I should have qualified my rather flippant comment. I only meant to imply that there was no push for either as a title challenger and no one from the outside was making any case for either, and certainly no one took Hagler to task at the time for not fighting either. My comment wasn't meant to compare the relative top-ten rankings or fighting worth of one versus the other.

 

The real question is did GOD duck McCallum ?
I know Zeus did. Zeus retired when he heard McCallum would be born a few thousand years down the line.

GOD just acts as if McCallum doesn't exist.
Which is kind of ironic, from an atheistic standpoint.

 

McCallum was definitely ducked by pretty much all the greats of the era atleast Curry showed some balllss ,even coming off of a devastating lost to Honeygan, the rest were from the later generation that fought him well out of his prime....and even then he was still great....

 

Graham was mandatory so Hagler actually did duck him, gave up the title rather than face him, disrespecting the long-standing WBA back when titles still meant something, when there were only two belts.

 

Hagler was searching for a huge payday.....his fight with Duran was his 1st really big pay day for back then, im not saying its ok, i remember before he fought Hearns he fought Hamsho 1st because he was the no.1 contender.....

 

Yeah, I think not meeting your mandatory is a pretty sound definition of ducking. But of course there are degrees in hell... For how long was Graham mandatory? And did WBA actually strip Hagler or threaten to do so?

 

Duran is the only one whose title he was a mandatory to. So, yeah, technically Duran did duck him, but that was to face Hearns who was high reward but hardly low risk.

It would have been a nice move by Hearns to set things straight and face McCallum after obliterating Roberto, but Mike was never Tommy's mandatory for a title and Hearns moved up shortly afterwards anyway, so I can't really label that a duck. No matter how much I'd like to see them fight.

Hagler and Leonard can't reasonably be said to have ducked Mike. Hagler had already lost his crown when Mike made the move up, and Leonard relinquished it directly after taking it from Hagler and never fought at MW again, so...

Nunn took on the guy that beat Mike. If Mike had beaten Kalambay I assume he'd met Nunn next, so I can't see how Nunn ducked him either.

McCallum is my favorite fighter, but all this about him being ducked is a bit overplayed. What he should have done after missing out on Duran was to relinquish his belt and move up to MW. Campaigning there would have been his only way to put pressure on Hagler, or at least Hearns, to take him on.

 

It goes to show how much that payday and beating Leonard meant for him, as being undisputed champion and having all those belts was a huge thing for him that he reiterated often.

To then get psyched out and played by Ray in the negotiations the way he did, leading to a loss that could have been avoided...some way to go out on a downer.It's no surprise Hagler fans are so bitter about that fight to this day.leonard pretty much rubbed his **** in his face.can't say i feel that sorry for Marvin, guy was a hypocrite and just as money hungry as anyone, but played up the blue collar no-bull**** defend against your top contenders champ image to the end.

 

I dont think a fight with Hearns was ever gonna happen....and i think they both knew that...but a Duran fight maybe could've happened maybe even Benitez.....

 

Oh, McCallum wanted Hearns bad, but Steward would not let Tommy in the same ring with him. And there was little sense in it for Hearns part. He had already fought Leonard, Benitez and Duran. Hagler was the next logical step. Staying at 154 and fighting someone most never heard of made little sense career wise. Especially since that little known fighter had given Hearns all he could handle in sparring and was a real threat.

Benitez was more or less done by 1984. That fight wouldn't have helped Mike's career forward much. Duran wasn't an option either after his loss to Hearns.

 

Actually there were three belts. And the WBA was considered as rankly corrupt as any of them. It wasn't respectable, so it's hard to disrespect something that has none in the first place. Hagler had all three belts with different mandatory challengers. The WBA and IBF stripped him for not fighting their top challengers. Marvin only wanted to fight Leonard then retire. So why face a no-name like Graham for peanuts?

Like I said, "duck" implies fear. Hagler disregarded him and the weak payday he represented.