He’s smaller than a lot of guys who currently fight at 154 and not really bigger than some current welterweights like Spence. He regularly weighed 157-158lbs the day of his fights. Why would anyone find it hard to imagine that he’d fight at 154? He would’ve made that easily. Must be sentimentalism or something.
This. The fact Hagler came in under 160 lbs easily just by staying very close to his weight class limit year round meant that his body was comfortable, so he was always durable and strong on fight night.
People with more muscle weight can dehydrate more than people with more body fat. Muscle contains more water. Middleweights today are likely fighting at the weight of Light Heavyweights in the "same day" weigh in times. It would make sense that if someone wanted to fight larger fighters, that person would have moved up and fought the Light Heavyweight champion when he was active? We watched a 147 pound title fight from 1951 for the Fight of the Week this week. I didn't initially know the weight class and I was not familiar with the fighters. From seeing them they looked to be 135 pounders and maybe less, I was surprised to find out they were fighting for the Welter title. They would look extremely small beside a modern 147 who probably enters the ring at 160.
So why in this day and age is there many weight bullies throughout the divisions. Why put yourself through the torture of cutting that much when you could comfortably fight at a weight closer to your natural weight. Not all of these fighters balloon to obese levels in between fights.
If Hagler had fought his whole career, amateur to pro, in the day before weigh ins era, I think that he might have started lower than most of you think. As it was, he fought at 152 as an amateur, 160 as a pro. Very consistent. In this era, they would pushing him to make 141 as an amateur, maybe 132.( I'm not sure how old he was when he started) The idea being that you are testing the waters; if he can do it as an amateur, he can do it as a pro with more time to recover. It is very possible that he would turn pro at 135, and fight at 150 or so. Actually, I think that his biggest problem would be at the top end. As referenced in other posts he is considerably smaller than other modern middleweights; what would be the effect if he tried to fight at 175? I reckon he would move through 135 fairly quickly, win a title at 140 (fighting at 152-155), 147 (fighting at 160), and 154.
Hagler was good enough to be a middleweight in any universe. Period. because this was his natural weight. if the question is could he be anything else, of course he could be. But he is a middleweight. just because lightheavyweights can masquerade at middleweights now it won’t mean Hagler would not be a middleweight today. He would just be a middleweight in the lower class like they all are now.
For the ones who don't believe you, they need to go to an amateur tournament. It's not unusual to see fighters 5-10 and over at 141, by 152, you're seeing guys who walk around in the 170s, maybe 180s. Often it seems like the 165s are the biggest kids in the tournament, by height. Just because a guy fights at a light weight doesn't mean he is the same size as untrained people of the same weight. The kid who was a good high school football player at 5-8, 155-60 and is looking for a new sport after graduation, will often box at 132 or 141. The ones who get into boxing and want to fight without cutting weight usually find they are too small if they fight at their "walking around" or "natural" weight and they cut weight themselves if they want to stay in boxing. A kid who played football at 155-60 and wants to fight at that weight will often find himself boxing against kids who are near 6-0 or even taller and who were 185 or so when they got into boxing. The ones who want to box and stay in the sport will usually figure out what weight they want to be and they usually want to be in a class where they will be big.