On this day, Leonard wins the decision over Hagler

Thanks for the info, Too late for a rematch in 1988.

 

Hi fellas, I hated Leonard as a kid and loved Hagler ( along with Ali and Duran he was my fave non Aussie fighter ) but with hindsight it was a great performance bySRL and I always have him a couple of points up when I score the fight. Marvin blew it. He should never have tried to fight orthodox in the first few rounds. He fought poorly in those rounds which in the end cost him the fight. Perhaps it was nerves. Only he knows.

I also believe Leonard actually landed the heavier punches in the fight, Hags threw a lot of pitted patter type arm punches when he did manage to corner Leonard or back him into the ropes. He should have fought dirtier and attacked Leonard’s body more in my humble.

In the end though Marvin had the last laugh over Leonard as Hags timed his retirement perfectly and unlike Leonard he wasn’t humiliated or beaten up. I bet Marvin had a chuckle to himself when he saw what happened to Leonard vs Norris and Camacho.

Marvin always a gave me the impression that he lacked a wee bit of confidence compared to genuine egotists like Duran and Leonard. Perhaps their auras affected Marvin a bit. Marvin also gave less than stellar performances in a few of his biggest fights. He didn’t look great against old Bennie Briscoe, he definitely performed a bit below his best in the first Antuofermo fight, ditto the Duran and Leonard fights.

Marvin always had some trouble with top class stick n move fighters and technicians. The Monroe, Watts and Colbert fights showed that to be the case. Marvin absolutely fed on face forward brawler types or fighters that tried to attack him. He had a beard like steel and was always a great counter puncher. His jab was brilliant against walk forward types.



Cheers All.

 

Leonard won the fight, even punch stat got it right. But I fault Hagler and his team for the loss.
1st, Hagler came out passive, willing to match skills with Leonard as opposed to pushing him by making him use those legs early that had been on the shelf for almost 5yrs. Hagler should've gone at Leonard like he went at Hearns.
#2, Leonard had problems with south paws as was shown with Kalule, but Hagler, perhaps the greatest switch hitter in boxing history, comes out in an orthodox stance? What the hell was he and his team were thinking?
Ultimately, Hagler and his team were the reason for the Leonard loss. I personally believe they were over confident and felt Leonard would fall down from the first serious punch Hagler threw at him.
Not saying it would've guaranteed a victory for him, but if he came out south paw, and aggressive the fight would've been much more taxing on Leonard. And at the least we would've seen Hagler fighting his very best at that point of his career.

 

You've made heaps of great posts but this one would take some topping.

Richard Steele who actually ref'd the fight said Leonard landed the harder blows. You can hear the wholehearted thump of some of his bigger shots landing.

I also totally agree their aura's affected Hagler, with one caveat. They were also stylistic drama. Hearns had his aura too but fit Hagler better and i'm sure you know where i am heading. You actually mention it as such in the last paragraph.

Great stuff mate.

 

The Leonard Corporation didn't grant rematches, unless he lost.

 

Ineffective aggression is not inferior to "ineffective non-aggression" though, which is what Leonard displayed for much of the time. Being smart enough and mobile enough to run and grab shouldn't merit points either, on its own. Being critcal of Hagler's output is fine, but makes no sense to me when people are so uncritical of Leonard's.

You've already caveated the whole debate with your opinion about people who score the fight for Hagler, so there's really not much to say.
I'm content to not know **** about boxing alongside Emanuel Steward on this issue.

 

Ray Leonard won the fight. He outsmarted Hagler at the table and in the ring. Ray looked fast and sharp. Marvin looked like he got old walking up the ring steps.
Marvin Hagler had almost twice as many fights as Ray. Marvin had miles on the odometer. It showed. He was pushing his punches the whole fight.

 

Leonard, it seems, wanted a rematch with Hagler in 1990. Hagler wasn't having any of it.

 

Leonard was landing clean accurate punches, Hagler wasn't. If Leonard scores more punches while Hagler is hitting air and gloves, Leonard wins the round.

Also:

Leonard landed 65 of 128 total punches (51 percent) to 51 of 151 (34 percent) for Hagler. Leonard had a 58-35 edge in connected power shots (non-jabs) over the last two rounds. The final CompuBox stats showed Leonard landing 306 of 629 total punches (49%-52 per round) to 291 of 792 (37%-66 per round) for Hagler

 

Hurts to say it, but Leonard won this and became the only one to beat all the Fab4. First few times I watched it I'd squeak a draw out for Hagler but with time it's clearer that Ray won.

 

salsanchezfan says:Just for a sneak peek at what some of the scorecards were, go look at the wiki page for the fight. 32 scorecards are posted there, and the count is 17 for Leonard, 9 for Hagler, and 6 even.

This suggests a close fight of course, which I wholly agree with. Like I said, I had Leonard by one point. With a fight that close you're always going to get a bit of dissention on way or another. The fact remains though, that in looking at that list ( and from what I was reading at the time in the boxing magazines) the storyline was all about Leonard's win, Leonard's performance, Leonard Leonard Leonard. The storyline was decidedly NOT that Hagler had been robbed. That's just not how it went down.

^^^This.

17 for Leonard
9 for Hagler
6 even

Lets move the 6 even cards to Hagler, he's still behind on the cards given.

I've score it twice. Leonard by 2 points. I don't recall the story line being that Hagler was robbed the day after, rather people bitched on how Leonard won.

 

I don't recall anyone at the time claiming Hagler had been robbed after the fight (I don't see anyone on this thread doing so, either) - but a decision doesn't need to be a robbery, for it to be considered controversial and that, at least, was acknowledged in the post fight reporting. Guerra's scorecard naturally played into that narrative, substantially.

However, the accusations of a fix involved Moretti, which was a tad unfortunate for him. The investigation couldn't turn up any hard evidence - more a curious coincidence. A lot of smoke with no fire, in my opinion, but I also think that the fact it made it to the attorney general's office and underwent a full month's investigation speaks to the sensitivity surrounding the bout.

Closely contested matches will always yield claims of robbery or fix, from certain quarters. It happens today and there are a litany of references to old-time bouts, which point to disputed decisions. Decisions are so rarely overturned that such cases are negligible in number and so the results almost always stand.

Which means, for all the debate (much as it's fine to differ with the opinion of others and even the judges), the matter of record was settled on the night.

 

coin flip decision in this one .. can't really argue against either one getting the nod .. the 118-110 card was the thing that stunk up the fight. I mean there is zero case for either fighter getting a card like that, the fight was that close

 

Very reasonable.