Hagler Never Got Rocked But He Was Pissing Blood After The Mugabi Fight

I rate Hagler as the #2 middleweight champion of all time, right after Monzon.

 

I seem to recall Hagler on commentary for the Mugabi-Thomas fight, saying on the finish, "What's wrong with his other eye?"

Tells you a lot about Hagler and his mental toughness and approach to the fight game. I mean, how many eyes does a guy need?

 

So his credentials were mainly beating a guy who had almost beaten a contender? A guy who was ranked in the lower 10 by the Ring (edit: and at a cathchweight of 156 it seems). As I said, not all that much.

Fletcher was unranked and had lost two of his last four when Mugabi got to him. He then lost once more and retired.

Green was unranked and had lost two of his last five when facing Mugabi, and would go on to rack up lots of losses.

If you want to call that slightly better than Joshua breezing through guys that are undefeated but untested and also unranked, that's ok. But it's all on the margins. Mugabi blew through former contenders on the slide, Joshua has blown through guys that haven't really done anything yet and possibly never will. Neither faced any real tests.

 

I don't think pre Hagler Mugabi blasts out Duran, not at all. I would favour Duran around the Moore fght over him at 154 and the Duran that beat Barkley over him at 160. Far too much guile when in form.

 

Yeah? Have a good look around here, including your own words, "an absolute monster". He was balanced out here years ago but seems to have grown again, to mythical proportions.

He'd lost a lot over those three years and had also been somewhat inactive. We had ring rust as well as an easily noticable decline in skills.

Hagler had been around forever, how long had Mugabi been around and how old was he? You can't even begin to compare their peak quotients. Hagler had been in plenty of wars over the years and Hearns was yet another. He'd also passed 30 and had a whopping 65 fights under his belt by the Mugabi fight. Mugabi had a mere 25, mostly against stiffs and was 25 years old.

It reminded me of a declining Holmes struggles against guys like Bonecrusher Smith, guys he would have beaten easier in years past.

I think the Hearns fight was reasonably punishing for Hagler, absolutely. If it was as much a breeze as you make out it would not have been revered anything like as much. Hagler was cut and took his share early even if Hearns never ever landed his best Sunday punch, contrary to the hype. I would agree the Mugabi fight was punishing, but in no way a career diminishing fight for a mentally strong fighter. Thousands of fighters have come back from worse.

Irrelevant for mine.

Thomas fracured Mugabi's eye socket and he immediately turned and quit. Thomas was also better than any opponent Mugabi had ever beat. He was uproven at Thomas' level. Mugabi for all the hype never did beat a guy as good as Thomas was when he actually fought them. Instead his reputation is completely reliant on one good loss and some spectacular ko's over average or past prime opposition.

I'm not so sure. Hagler - Hearns was a great fight between two fighters that had a genuine animosity. The greatness of both makes it particularly notable. I don't see Hearns efforts overblown anything like Mugabi's personally. Duran was a small man fighting a Hagler that was very very close to his peak. As you know i lean on the side of a poor effort from Hagler even in winning but Duran with all the intangibles has to be admired.

Where are the threads saying Duran deserved a rematch? I've never seen one in here. You and i both know Duran didn't nearly beat him but someone can legitimately say he almost beat him on the cards and not be lying regardless of how much of a robbery it would have been.

Hearns could have had a second chop, he did everything asked of him and more vs Schuler and fought his guts out against Hagler. Then of course SRL came out of the woodwork.

Hearns effort was notable in that we hadn't seen Hagler in any sort of trouble before at all even to the point of halting.

 

Only one of the Hamsho fights was controversial.

Here is what Parker said about the Mugabi fight -

CP: This fight was always going to end early because I never came in this light. It was a contracted weight of 156 and this was a struggle for me. I was dieting and not eating to make that weight and I had nothing. No punch and weak as could be. I swear, a boy could have stopped me that day. And of course, Mugabi stopped me early.

 

One comparison that springs to mind is Mugabi back then and Ward now. Ward hasn't done much more at LHW than Mugabi had at MW (but Ward has actually beat ranked LHWs, hasn't he?), but Ward truly established himself as the man at 168 which Mugabi didn't do at 154.

 

I think Duran was the underdog against Barkley, too.

 

This whole "Mugabi being ruined by Hagler" also seems somewhat contradictory to the fact that he won his only title 3 years after losing to Hagler. That was probably his best win.

His record at 154 is quite alright. He convincingly beat four ranked fighters by my count (almost all in the lower half, though), but never any big names. He was beat by arguably the two best he faced at the weight, though. And I don't think he beat one ranked fighter at 160 (seeing how the Parker fight seems to have been at 156).

I feel pretty certain that very few, if anyone, would have made much noise of him being anything special at MW if it wasn't for the tough fight he gave Hagler, who is a favorite among many here.

 

This wasn't adressed to me, but I think it's an interesting hypothetical anyway. Mugabi's punches were less wide and signalled than Barkley's, but otherwise they were pretty alike except Barkley's larger size. Mugabi was also somewhat of one big punch at a time fighter, and Roberto loved those guys. The ones he struggled with as he aged was more the ones who let loose quick combinations or flurries of punches.

I do think Mugabi was technically superior to Barkley, but he was smaller and also of the mold Duran liked to face. Tough one to call.

 

It's a little bit crazy to deny Mugabi's obvious decline and to say Mugabi's best win came after the Hagler fight.

Mugabi won the WBC 154 pound title in 1989 when Rene Jacquot fell awkwardly and twisted his ankle. The fall wasn't even primarily the result of a Mugabi punch, the referee seemed to rule a slip, as Jacquot missed with a left hook as Mugabi half-landed a right, and Jacquot got tangled up and hurt himself. To his credit, Jacquot attempted to continue, although surely he should have been entitled to a NO CONTEST and retain the title. Mugabi obviously KD'd him immendiately, somehow won a title by 1st round stoppage.

Mugabi had done NOTHING to earn the shot at Jacquot's title.
8 straight wins agains nobodies since the Thomas debacle, and for most of them he was well over 160 pounds, nevermind light-middle.

 

He was an absolute monster.

Hagler was still very good.

I'm not sure what your point is. Marvin Hagler had an epic career and was obviously past his prime, yes.
I'm not sure how that makes the fact of the fight any easier on John Mugabi.

Hearns cut Hagler and rocked him but the Mugabi fight was FAR more punishing on Hagler.
I didn't call it a "breeze" for Hagler.

This flippant dismissal of how a fight like Hagler-Mugabi (and other factors, perhaps) could "ruin" a good fighter is silly. It you actually stopped to think what fights like that could do to a human being, physically-psychologically, you'd accept if for what it is.
No, Mugabi does not come up to the Marvin Hagler standard, or the standard for ATG longevity and career resilience, but very very few do.

Everyone's mentality is different, for you to say "not a career diminishing fight for a mentally strong fighter" is an ignorant statement because we don't know the whole story and workings of any person's mind.
Mugabi SHOWED some quite extreme mental toughness IN the fight. Maybe he fell apart in the hours or weeks or months and years after it.

It's like saying Tyson Fury can never be a fighter because he's so mentally fragile he's affected by his negative press.
But we know that's not true, because he's proven himself a fighter.
Minds are complex things, to put it mildly.

Well, Duane Thomas has a win over Kalambay so he's probably better than Herol Graham and Mike McCallum.
Other than that, Thomas has nothing on his record except thumbing Mugabi.

Mugabi did better against Hagler than Hearns did. Hearns showed a weakness in the chin, and weakness in the body, he couldn't take much, his legs were gone as soon as Hagler hit him in the body and the head a few times. Mugabi showed impressive durability.
Both of them fought a past prime Hagler, and if we swapped them around Hearns might do relatively better and Mugabi might do less well ... but only compared to their own efforts.

 

I also think Mugabi's performance against Hagler gets a bit overplayed. He did somewhat better than Roldan against a somewhat worse version of Hagler.

That and a quick KO over a ranked MW at a catchweight are really his achievements at the weight.