A question about the fab 4

Go read all the old boxing mags during his ride. Marvin was avoided like the plague.

 

I read boxing magazines back then and still have them.

Marvin Hagler fought everyone.

He waited a WHOLE YEAR for a title shot. And then didn't win it when he got it.

Like I said yesterday, Hagler's rep has grown over time. During his climb, he was no more popular or well known than any number of guys who fought for or won titles.

And, during his rise to the title, nobody was predicting he was going to be considered one of the best middleweight champions of all time. Especially after he didn't even win the title from Antuofermo when he got his shot.

Great things were expected of guys like Hearns. You could tell by his frame and his power he was going to surpass the welterweights.

And that was at a time when I believe only five or six men in the sport's entire history had even won titles in three divisions. So spotting a guy who could win titles in multiple divisions was a big deal.

People didn't jump up weight classes and win one belt after the other back then.

When Benitez and Arguello won titles in three divisions within a short period of time of each other, I remember people's minds were blown because they were only like the sixth or seventh guys ever to do it.

Winning titles in multiple divisions didn't occur regularly until they moved the weigh-ins back a day. Now, people do it from fight to fight without thinking. Because they just dry out and rehydrate. Nobody really MOVES UP. They just don't DRY OUT as much from one fight to another, and they pick up three belts.

Then, they actually had to put on weight and move up. Guys actually stepped in the ring under the weight limit. I remember Leonard saying he lost 10 pounds during the first Duran fight and when he got back to the dressing room he was nearly 135 pounds. They weren't 170 pounders on fight night competing for 147-pound belts.

 

Stop moving the goalposts. Read the topic of the thread. It’s about
whether they were considered future champs before winning the title. Not whether Marvin was a sure-fire ATG.

Marvin was rated No. 1 by ring magazine in its 1977 annual ratings. He got his title shot in November 1979. That’s basically three years he waited.

 

No.

Ring magazine doesn't control who the champion fights. It certainly didn't in 1977, the year of the RING RATINGS scandal ... when the editor of Ring and the guys who ranked the fighters were ALL FIRED. Nobody followed the Ring ratings at the end of 1977. Nobody paid much attention to them until HBO tried to start pumping them back up in the 1990s.

The Olympic Gold Medalist Ronnie Harris was the WBC and WBA's #1 contender when Corro (the WBC and WBA champ) signed to defend against him in 1978. Hagler wasn't the top contender. And he certainly wasn't the top contender for THREE YEARS before he got his first title shot.

https://www.nytimes.com/1978/05/25/archives/harris-gets-title-bout.html

 

So now the WBA and WBC rankings are sacrosanct? Lol.

Mike Colbert was ranked No. 1 in 1977 when Hagler knocked him out. Compare Marvin’s record to that of Harris at the time and tell me what you think.

 

Talk about moving the goalposts. You're trying to rewrite history. Yes, the WBC and WBA ratings were all that mattered from 1977 on for next few decades. The Ring's reputation was ruined after the scandal broke everyone was called before Congress. The television networks refused to even mention Ring ratings for years after that.

And you can't cite RING ratings from 1977 on one hand and igrnore the fact that in 1977 they were considered the least reliable of them all to the point that CONGRESS got involved.

Hagler became the top contender in 1978 and got a title shot at the belts in 1979. There were no YEARS of waiting. Everyone didn't AVOID him. That's all bull. Hell, he's lucky he got a second shot at the title after he failed his first time. Not everyone did.

Maybe you should read more. You obviously weren't following the sport then.

I thought the thread was directed at people who followed the sport back then. Not people who didn't.

 

Yes, I was.

And the ratings you’re talking about were U.S. ratings that set up an ABC tournament. Yes, they were rigged, but those weren’t the magazine’s world rankings. Go look at them and explain to me who is way out of place.

Read some real investigative journalism about the WBA in particular that covers that era: https://www.si.com/vault/1981/03/23...bious-practices-from-its-power-base-in-panama

https://www.si.com/vault/1981/03/16/106776018/how-the-wbc-and-wba-rose-to-power

Those WBA and WBC ratings only “mattered” because they decided who got shots at titles, and it was through payoffs and graft and corruption. It kept worthy fighters like Hagler in the back of the line.

Hagler was a known quantity to everyone in boxing before he won the title. He went through contender after contender after contender and had to sit on the sidelines while less worthy fighters were vaulted into title shots. That’s how the Ernesto Espanas and Fully Obels kept finding themselves being given championship-fight paydays without earning them.

The question here is whether he was regarded as championship material before he won the title. He had wins over Sugar Ray Seales (two wins, one by KO, and a draw), Eugene Hart, Willie Monroe x2, No. 1-rated Mike Colbert, Willie Warren, Kevin Finnegan x2, Doug Demmings, Bennie Bristol and Willie Warren before he finally got to step into the ring for a title fight.

Explain to me how someone beats all those guys on the way up and you think that people didn’t think he might just win a belt one day.

He was too tentative against Antuofermo the first time, yes, but he never made that mistake again.

 

Yes, he was too tentative against Antuofermo. But he did make that mistake again ... a couple of times, most notably against both Duran and Leonard.

And, yes, he beat Hart, Seales, Monroe and Warren, but so did Boogaloo Watts (and Watts beat Hagler, too). Monroe beat Hart and Warren and Hagler, too. Hell, Vito beat Warren, and Briscoe and Hart. And Ronnie Harris beat Seals and Alan Minter before he got a title shot. Harris wasn't "gifted" a shot. They were all fighting each other and beating each other. And there were people who thought all of them were going to be champs. But they all didn't.

Hagler was a contender like a lot of contenders back then. He got his number-one ranking and he fought for the titles and he didn't win. Then he got back in line, and the next time he got a shot he won.

But he was not some guy who everyone thought was going to be a champ or achieve remotely what he did achieve (going down as one of the best ever).

He wasn't the #1 contender for THREE YEARS like you said. Everyone didn't avoid him. They all fought each other (often several times). It took Hagler a couple tries to win it. And it took years as champ before he started to get real recognition. It was a long slog.

Like I said, Hagler's rep has grown over the years. At the time he was a contender, he was just like a lot of contenders in a lot of divisions who people thought had a chance to win a belt. Most didn't. He did.

My point was just Hagler didn't stand out like Hearns did coming up. Or Leonard did coming up. (Duran as a contender was before my time.)