Did The Petronelli's Lose Marvin His Crown?

Gibbs probably scored it for Hagler out of spite. :bart

Also, never trust a Mexican.

 

8-4-1 ?

 

The Petronelli's by all accounts were very nice people, Marvin trusted them, and they did not let him down outside the ring. But inside the ring, they seemed very ordinary. Whether that was getting Hagler to take it easy against Vito in fight one, or devising tactics to facing prime Duran rather than 1983 160lbs Duran, that meant the fight was pick-em for a dozen rounds...

 

I remember reading about this in Four Kings. It's not like Hagler didn't have a say in it, it's as much his fault as theirs.

 

Words to live by. Whenever my family asks me how I'm doing I always ask 'what have you heard?'

 

I tend to look at them more as being the reason that Marvin wasn't actually GREATER than he was. Those guys weren't seasoned, top flight trainers like Ray Arcel and Eddie Futch. If Marvin would have been trained with one of those gents I can't see him ever having a stale performance such as he sometimes turned out. Antuofermo 1 would have been a TKO win for Marvin, so would Duran. Willie The Worm MIGHT have beaten him (Marvin was green and Monroe was pretty good).

Pat and Goody did well with Marvin. But I believe he could have been even better.

 

I wonder if Lawless' wife gave Gibbs one for the road in return for his nobility?

 

8-4-1 ?

Did he score the stretching and shadowboxing before the first bell ?

 

You don't need to do that, lad.

Just tell us what Gibbs DID score it.

 

I've got the highest respect for Harry but I can't see how he got it 8-4 for Hagler. Like someone else said maybe he just said that give the Petronelli's something to think about......or maybe he didn't!

 

So far as rejecting a British judge, even Harry Gibbs, they had good reason to be wary after Roland Dakin's ridiculous scoring in Minter-Antuofermo I [which would have been a 150-135 shutout on his card if Vito's shoving of Alan to the deck in round 14 hadn't been ruled a knockdown by Carlos Padilla], followed by their own experience in dethroning Minter. Hagler had consulted with Vito following Antuofermo's experiences with Dakin, and then in London.

Gibbs may have claimed to score it in Hagler's favor over SRL off the tape, but that's still not the same as scoring it from ringside, even if it was a sincere opinion after the fact. And Sal may well have a point about Gibbs making that claim out of spite after the way he was rejected by the Hagler camp.

What's of more concern to me is that Hagler's camp cared at all who the judges were. They should have gone in with a conviction that they needed a knockout, and to hell with the scoring. Then, if it does get to the final bell, the cards might take care of themselves.



The Petronellis got Hagler to where he got, from his 1969 beginning in boxing to SRL in 1987. Off-hand, I'm not sure of a longer such relationship aside from Clancy-Griffith.

Marv had a different temperament than Griff, and the Petronellis were also different from flamboyant Irish Queens native Clancy in personality. Although the sons of Italian immigrants, they themselves were Brockton natives, and seem to very much have taken on the characteristic stoicism of the New Englander. Hagler was 13 years old when his mother moved her family to Brockton after the deadly 1967 Newark riots destroyed their tenement in the Central Ward. His personality was already formed.

Having grown up without a father, the Petronellis became the closest thing to such a relationship he ever had. He was several years younger when he walked into their gym than Griffith was when he was brought to Clancy by the owner of the hat factory where he worked because of his natural physique. Emile wasn't enthusiastic about boxing, he had to be pushed into it. Hagler actively pursued it, and had to sell the Petronellis on his commitment.

Fast forward 18 years later to SRL, and there's not really much they can do if he doesn't come in with that fire lit underneath him. They've now been together most of his life, and they're not the screamers Dundee usually is. [Angelo was pretty cool working with Foreman, but they were both well established, and George was the boss. Aside from Moore, I can't imagine Foreman being deferential to anybody during his comeback.] "Don't get cute, don't switch orthodox. Keep it simple Marv, and do what you do best. Don't fight his fight, fight YOUR fight!" I don't know what else they might have said to him to change things, as he had always been so much of a self starter.

Yes, it's a business, but thinking of the PBF-Pac non-fight, they really didn't need SRL, and Hagler would have lost no credibility for rejecting his challenge in 1987. Ray offered an opportunity for a huge payday, but he doesn't make any himself without getting the fight. Hagler's team made ridiculous concessions just to get SRL in the ring, and that may be where he really lost his crown, by agreeing to larger gloves, a bigger ring, and shorter time limit. [In fact, they did lose his WBA crown in the process, as it was stripped just prior to SRL-Hagler, making this the first time the undisputed MW Title wasn't on the line since Monzon was stripped of WBC recognition in 1974 for not defending against Valdez. Since 1987, the MW Title has only been an undisputed title for around a year, when Hopkins finally re-consolidated it in 2004 before Jermain Taylor briefly took it. A disaster for boxing, as the MW Title had historically been the most enduring undisputed championship in the sport for over a century prior to SRL-Hagler.]