When SRL beat Hagler, one judge had it 118-110.

Theres a reason there are 3 judges.

 

There was great debate as to who won back in the day, Hagler or Leonard, but none in the media made a big issue of the judge that ridiculously had it 118-110 Hagler, certainly nobody was up at arms about it like Teddy Atlas was.

The difference in Hagler-Leonard and Canelo-Golovkin is that the big story to write about would be Leonard beating Hagler.

There was no such angle for Canelo-Golovkin so the media created such angle and made the big story to be about 118-110 and corruption in boxing.

 

Those in the media that scored for Golovkin are of the opinion that although Canelo's defense was great with his waist movements and making Golovkin miss, he wasn't making him pay enough. That Canelo would win the first minute and just play defense the last 2 minutes.

Now I say why wasn't Leonard criticized for that. In fact, Leonard mostly ran circles around the ring avoiding action and did most of his punching the last 30 seconds of the rounds.
Yet its Canelo who gets criticized for playing rope a dope on the ropes and Leonard gets praised for skipping and hopping around the ring avoiding Hagler until there was 30 seconds to go in the round.
Leonard has since admitted the plan was to steal the rounds.

The point is Canelo spent more minutes in the fight punching than Leonard did, but its Leonard who gets praised by the media for as they put it, propinating Hagler a boxing lesson.

Its a pity that whatever the media say's the fans eat it up and buy as the Gospel truth. LOL!

 

So, he judged a fight between Lalonde and Davis on a fight held in Trinidad, a handful of other title fights in Asia (including another disputed nod toward Chitilada in his rematch against Kim), and then four years later started getting higher profile fights like Norris-Curry, at a point when Curry was damaged goods. It took seven years for him to judge another title fight in Vegas and eight for him to get a really high profile fight with Benn-McClellan, and even then, that was in England. Most of his assignments were in his native Mexico, or outside of the Americas.

To be fair, most of the decisions that he rendered appear pretty sound (like his card favoring Johnston over Mendy in France). So, maybe Leonard-Hagler was just a misread. You never know. Maybe he could have been influenced by Leonard doing better off the backfoot than most expected. Either way, he continued to judge, but didn't get near the main event of a superfight like Hagler-Leonard for quite some time.

 

"The Illusion of Victory" an article by Hugh McIlvanney published by Sports Illustrated a couple of weeks after the fight.

Vito Antuofermo, who scored the fight for Leonard.

Larry Merchant

So, even many of the people who scored for Leonard knew what they were watching.

 

I had Hagler beating Leonard. When I was on the promoters bus Sylvester Stallone's brother had Hagler winning the fight and he was there at ringside, expensive seats. Wynton Marsales told me the same thing...............he was there also...............

 

Yeah he felt under appreciated didn't he. Can you imagine the outcry now if someone of that stature was to retire under the circumstances he did. I am a fan of Leonard's but that whole situation left a bad taste, the way he messed hagler about.

 

I don't think GGG appeared to be quite as bamboozled against Canelo as Hagler seemed to be, at least for a while, against SRL. GGG's incessant pressure eventually gave the impression to two of the judges that he, in fact, was imposing himself on Canelo after a while. The fact that he "took back the narrative", at least for a while, was the main reason why one of the judges scored for him and the other called it a draw.

 

Two totally different fighters, two totally different eras, two totally different mindsets. People looked at the two fighter in a totally different way, no comparison can be made. Keep this in mind, nobody booed Leonard or Hagler.

 

https://www.si.com/vault/1987/04/20...y-another-view-of-the-leonard-hagler-decision