How much is this going to upset me?

I found it boring and completely frustrating. Had no idea what was going on in Haglers head hence the source of my frustration.

 

That is Hagler. He should have been more aggressive in many fights. He gave too much respect to Duran, and waited to long to start the fight vs Leonard. Questionable Ring IQ? Questionable mental toughness?

 

I remember someone once saying that this how to start a fight in Boston - walk into any bar and say "Leonard won".

 

I still dont understand what the hell he was thinking those first 4 rds. Then he seemed to all of a sudden forget how to cut a ring off.
Maybe he was just trying to hard and it just backfired on him

 

I know. Hagler didn't do well vs speedy fighters. SRL had extremely fast hands. Maybe this had something to do with it?

 

I think he wanted to prove too much all at once and it just screwed him up.
1 He wanted to prove he was a better boxer. Comes out conventional then doesn't let his hands go.
2 He now falls behind on points and instead of staying composed panick's
3 Starts chasing Leonard and looking for one punch instead of throwing combos and cutting the ring off.
4 Leonard steals his last 30 seconds of the rds and wins the fight. Instead of being mad at judges only ...Hagler should have been even more angry at himself. He blew a fight he should have dominated if his head was together that night.

 

Yeah this is it. I couldn't score it for Hagler if i tried. Leonard fought his own fight the vast majority of the time.

 

It wasn't a great showing from Hagler, who fought exactly the way Leonard would have wanted him to fight. However, Leonard was doing an awful lot of holding and not fighting (for which Steele warned him constantly but never took any action, likewise all those Leonard bolo punches that landed well south of the equator) and seemed to get credit merely for not being obliterated like everyone expected. Throw in a judge scoring virtually every round to Leonard and the lack of a rematch and I wasn't terribly impressed. I thought a narrow win for Hagler or maybe a draw would have been fair. Haven't watched it for a long time and I don't really care enough to watch it again.

 

Considering the layoff Leonard had, I was sure impressed. Yes, Hagler had slipped, but that's more than canceled out by amount of time Leonard had off.

 

I've tried scoring the fight for Leonard but can't do better than 115-114 Hagler win.
Leonard simply didn't do enough.
A lot of people give him rounds for backpedalling and leaping into clinches, non effective non-aggression, stalling. The fact that he's making Hagler chase him is deemed enough. I score primarily on punches landed, effectiveness and accuracy of the punches, and favour the fighter who isn't stalling if the round is close.
Hagler was mediocre. Leonard was a revelation considering the circumstances of his comeback .... But he simply didn't do enough for the win.
Hagler deserved the win.
It was a close fight.

Either way, I think it is viewed correctly as a great legacy boost for Leonard and casts a shadow of doubt over Hagler's greatness among the very greatness middleweight champions of all time, even if the decision was bad.

 

I don't think the decision was bad. Lately I've been saying if 2/3 of the media cards say one guy won, that is good enough to confirm the right man won. I posted media score cards 13 for Leonard, just 6 for Hagler.

68.4% felt Leonard won.
31.5% felt Hagler won.

Half of Hagler score cards had him winning by just one round.

 

That would only make it worse for me.

 

I don't know why you've excluded those who scored it a draw, of which there were quite a few. That would mean almost 50% of those listed didn't think Leonard won.

There were also others not on that list above, like Hugh McIlvaney and Eddie Futch, who scored it for Hagler. So did Harry Gibbs, who was originally going to be one of the judges.

 

It didn’t fit the agenda!