He was. The Roldan, Hamsho, Mugabi and Hearns wins flattered to deceive. Duran gave Hagler angles and movement on the inside, something which Roldan, Hamsho and Mugabi didn't have the skill to do. The Hagler of the late 70's and up until 81 would have had less problems with Duran. Tommy, though oozing skill and class chose to go for broke with Marvin, and we all saw what happened there.
Apparently the strategy was to box & move. In the dressing room before the fight one of Hearns's hangers on was massaging his legs, much to Manny Stewards annoyance when he entered, because he believed that would weaken his legs. So they decided to go for broke believing Hearns wouldn't have the legs to go the distance after the massage, plus they believed Marvin was a slow starter. That story was according to Manny Steward.
I don't think he should be classed as a great HW but he did out point one of the greatest MW fighters ever. He would give most a good fight that ight but I wouldn't favour him over most greats, unless they had faded slightly. Still Leonard was further removed from his prime imo and much more rusty so I think it's fair to say prime Leonard, with an extra 10 pounds would give most MW champs nightmares.
Hagler didn't give Hearns much chance to try to box at a distance. Watch round 1 again. Hearns only "goes for broke" after Hagler closes the gap almost immediately and Hearns nails him as Hearns is almost back against the ropes. He's forced to fight under pressure. He stuns Hagler then when Hagler recovers and comes back again, Hearns again tries to box but Hagler is constantly on him. Hearns simply couldn't do at middleweight what he could do against welters. It wasn't just the Hagler fight. His height, reach, strength and power simply didn't faze middleweights as much.
Hagler would have known his usual measured counterpunching game wouldn't have worked against Hearns. How do you counter a taller man with longer arms, fast hands, good skills and dangerous power? Before the fight Manny Steward posed that very question. Benitez, Leonard, Duran were all fine boxers, yet how many rounds did they win against Hearns combined? The answer was Hagler didn't even bother trying to box Hearns, hence going gung ho from the start, which was not his usual style, despite the popular perception of him (largely from this fight). Hearns couldn't keep him off and was immediately fighting to survive.
I read that too, but I sometimes wonder about Stewards " excuses " for his fighters defeats. Didn't he try to make up some corny excuse for Lewis / Rahman 1 instead of just admitting Lennox was so arrogant that he was more interested in filming some scabby film in Las Vegas than he was in knuckling down to training for an important fight?
I don't know if that is strictly true. Tommy was able to KO guys up into the 180's. Though admittedly they were not of Haglers calibre. After the Hagler fight he stopped 14 guys out of 25 fights, all at the same weight or higher.
This is how i saw it. Hearns still had very good power at middleweight though but it fell off just enough that guys who had decent beards could return his fire and expose his chin.
Yes, I'm not saying he didn't have power. It just didn't instill the same degree of fear and respect in the better middleweights and above. The middleweights just had a bit more of everything to equalize against Hearns - size, reach, strength, chin, whatever - and that gave the better ones the confidence to take it to him. Even while he was still a bigger puncher and taller than most of them, he wasn't quite the 'awesome freak' he had been against the welterweights.
Hearns seemed to have trouble moving against Marvin. He was stumbling and looked awkward. After the bout Tommy said his legs felt weak during the fight. I remember he blamed someone or something but forget the details. To me as someone who has been in various boxing rings it Looked like the ring canvas was very thick. Thick canvas makes it real tough to move side to side.
This is about the dumbest post ever - So a welter weight with detached retina only 1 fight in 5 years,moves up to fight a 32 year old Hagler who had not lost in 10 years and and ko'd every recent opponent including undefeated Mugabi, so this welterweight caught Hagler at a bad time. Get f outta here Beat hearns 32-0 with 30 ko's Duran -72-1 Benitiz 39-0-1 All except Hagler went on to win other world championships s higher weight classes. Duran since 1972 , had 0 fights where he waited 5 months between fights , but somehow this 2nd fight between them was rushed. GTFO
Leonard had trouble making 147 almost a decade before 1987, he was not "a welterweight" anymore by then. Hagler was a tiny middleweight. Both were lightmiddleweights by 1987, with Hagler thicker and Leonard taller. Leonard underwent surgeries to fix his detached retina, his retina was not detached against Hagler. Duran (in thier rematch), Benitez, Lalonde, Kalule and Hearns ( in both of their fights ) were all extremely weight drained against Leonard come fight time and in each one of these cases never fought again at or below the weight they had to weigh in order to fight Leonard. So all of your claims were either meaningless numbers or lies. It means that you belong in these forums and have the potential to be popular.
