How steep was Hagler’s decline following the Hearns and then the Mugabi fights?

Marvin Hagler stopped the World Middleweight Champion Alan Minter for the title.

He made 12 successful Middleweight title defenses ... 10 of the 12 defenses came against either the #1 contender (8 of them) or a reigning light middleweight champion (Duran and Hearns).

Fully Obel was the #1 contender both times they fought, Hamsho was the #1 contender both times they fought, as were Sibson, Roldan, Mugabi and Scypion. Duran was the WBA and Hearns was the WBC light middleweight champs when they faced Hagler.

The only guys he beat who weren't ranked #1 were Antuofermo in their return (and Vito was basically done and wanted to quit after one round) and late sub Caveman Lee (who lasted all of 67 seconds.)

And out of 13 World Middleweight Title fights he engaged in during his reign prior Leonard (11 of which came against #1 contenders or reigning champs) Hagler stopped 12 of them. Only Duran went the distance.

It was an amazing run. He was basically only fighting the best during his reign. The guys who weren't the best (all two of them) tended to last a few rounds or a few seconds.

So, how far had Hagler fallen off after Mugabi?

Not much at all really ... considering he only fought once and about half the people who watched that fight thought Hagler beat Leonard, too.

Leonard was never going to stand toe-to-toe and war with Hagler if they'd fought in 1982. Ray would have fought the same as he did against Duran in their rematch and like he did against Marvin in 1987 ... moving and stopping to flurry.

Hagler may have gotten the nod over Leonard in 1982, or he may have lost then, as well. If they'd fought in 1982, that would've been Hagler's first superfight. And Hagler admitted he had nerves when he engaged in his first superfight with Duran.

Hagler could've continued on. He was just fed up with the game. He left at the right time before he actually fell off in a big way.

He left the ring believing he won. Sometimes, that's as good as a win.

 

It was significant .. he supposedly partied quite a bit, his speed dropped, he was hit easier than usual , he was inactive , fighting once a year .. it was watching the Mugabi fight that Leonard realized Hagler slipped and he had a shot ..

 

While all of that is true, when people like Fully Obel are ranked No. 1 (twice lol) it’s factual to say he was a top-ranked contender by a corrupt governing body but c’mon, let’s not prop that up like it’s the top available person to defend with.

And IIRC, the Caveman defense was a late replacement for … Mickey Goodwin, whose biggest win was over Teddy Mann and who never beat anyone above journeyman status.

He could, instead, have fought Wilfred Benitez, who was coming off a domination of Duran and called Hagler out. But that call-out echoed in the darkness.

Hagler could have skipped Caveman and had Arum pay Obel step-aside money (he did this several times with Roldan, paying him plus putting him on Hagler undercards in hopes that Juan would get beat and they could avoid him … tough physical matchup as we saw when they did fight but also not a massive draw so low-reward/high-risk). I consider avoiding an easy-to-make fight with Benitez to be a bad missed opportunity on Hagler’s record. Fully could wait and would have.