Could Marvin Hagler have been a HW champ in the pre-Dempsey era?

But you ARE the "bigger is better argument" advocate here.

You are essentially saying every 170 - 180 pound fighter is better than anyone Hagler beat, in a head-to-head sense.

 

No that is not what I am saying at all.

I am saying that it is difficult to favour Hagler over the best fighters of that weight, given that we never saw how he would handle the transition.

In order to favour him, you need to make a number of assumptions about how his attributes would carry up, where the opposite could just as easily be the case.

Given this uncertainty, the sensible choice would be to provisionally pick against him.

 

No I am not saying that at all.

I am not saying that.

What I am saying is that it is probably a leap too far to pick him over Marvin Hart, or even a heavyweight version of Tommy Burns.

If he had beaten a significant contender at light heavyweight, then there would be more to argue about here.

I have a track record of picking smaller fighters over bigger fighters as you know, but I usually want to see some sort of precedence first.

For example I will back Jack Dempsey against superheavyweights with more conviction than I will back Rocky Marciano.

 

janitor,

I stated :

"It's FAIR to assume that a man who is one of the very greatest and most durable middleweights ever would be able to beat SOME super-middles and light-heavyweights, and some mediocre cruisers maybe. Then it comes down to where you draw the line. What level of fighter you credit him with beating."

You replied :

"No, that is absolutely not a fair assumption, on any possible level."


My statement is simply that some 168, 175, and even MAYBE some MEDIOCRE cruisers could be found to lose to a Marvin Hagler.
You say NO, that's not a fair assumption at all.

How's that different to saying every 170 pound fighter is to be deemed "too good" (too big) for Hagler to beat?
Which you seem to deny is the logical conclusion to your argument.

Like I said, it comes down to where you draw the line, what level Hagler is likely to cope with, without giving him too much credit, and how good we say Burns/Root are compared to 165-175 pounders in general.

 

I would expect Hagler to have had considerable success in a supermidleweigth division.

I am a little bit uncertain how he would have done at light heavyweight, and I am definitely reserving judgment on that one.

I am sure that he would have beaten some mediocre cruisers, but I would not be prepared to pick him over an elite cruiser, without seeing him in that division.

The question basically comes down to whether he could have beaten Burns.

He probably could have beaten Burns in a middleweight fight, but that is not the question being asked.

Burns was clearly an absolute monster in the 160-175lbe range, and nobody should be picked over him at that weight, without careful consideration.

 

I'd pick him to beat Hart, and give him an ok chance against the most shot version of Sullivan.

 

He'd have beaten Fitz imo, Corbett, Burns and Hart as well

Lmao Johnson vs Hagler is probably a 50-50