It's a tough choice splitting Hagler and Monzon, I must say. Hagler's pre-championship run kinda gets forgotten amongst the ''destruct and destroy'' and the endless KO run once he'd finally got the title, he probably beat more ranked contenders prior to becoming champion than most linear champions ever beat in their entire career. If only he'd have left Leonard high and dry, and walked off into the sunset :-( Love the interview after the Mugabi fight, summed him up in about 30 seconds.
I've got the Mugabi fight, but not the post fight interview - what was it like? I love the Mugabi fight, yet again proving Haglers chin against a vicious puncher in Mugabi. I'd like to get some perspective on how Mugabi was seen at the time, because he seemed like a nigh-on unstoppable beast to me.
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=unnpAcNlRkw[/ame] Go to the end of the vid, it gets cut short but it's pretty good. I'd like to know the same about Mugabi, obviously this fight pretty much ended him, but going into it unbeaten with a 100% KO ratio can't be all bad. He's obviously a better fighter than a Lacy type figure, took one beating and may as well have retired.
Mugabi was an Olympic Silver medallist who had been destroying people at 154. After Hagler, he had no chin whatsoever. And had eye problems afterward as well. BB, I always take Haglers pre-title resume into account. But it's not like Monzon didn't also beat the best guy Hagler beat from those years as well (Briscoe)
Monzon was more dominant in his time for me, Hagler struggled with Mugabi and Duran, and some of his better names were guys moving up in weight (although Monzon had Griffith too). Monzon looked pretty comfortable in almost all his fights.
Hagler showed Duran a lot of respect but won comfortably. Griffith was a genuine middle, and ex-Lineal Champion. Napoles is the Welter coming up that Monzon faced. Briscoe had him on ***** street in one of their fights as well. Monzons style was designed to make things comfortable for him, Hagler had more variety. Both had long reigns and considered P4P greats. Splitting them is difficult IMO :good
Well Napoles outweighed Griffith when they met and Griffith was rarely hitting the Middleweight limit. Spent a lot of time at Welter and moved down after competing at Middle for a while, suggest to me he wasn't really a Middleweight. Fair point on Napoles otherwise.
I would agree to an extent but not re: Monzon. Theres very little known about him, no biography that I know of. Strange when you consider just how good he was and how crazy he was outside the ring.
:good This is a great idea imo there's a couple fighters out there I and im sure many other would love to learn more about, Monzon is definitely one of them.
Monzon was arguably the most poised man inside the ring there has ever been. Outside he was a ****ing psycho!
Nice quote about Monzon, that it was difficult to appreciate how good he was until we saw an opponent's face at the end of a fight.
He was a complete dick, but a fine fighter. Not a lot out there on him surprisingly, he's usually the kind of character that inspires these kind of things.
Love triangles with Ms World winners, jet set lifestyle across monaco, paris, italy etc, threw a jealous bird off a balcony, sent down for life, on day release crashes a car into a wall and is dead (although was it one of those smouldering infernos, no body?). Alcoholic, smoker, world champion. An interesting gentleman
