Is Marvin Hagler the original ‘reclining champion’?

Agreed. And Monzons looks about the same as Haglers. Mostly 2 and 3's from memory. Notice he conveniently left out Marvins 3 fights each in 81 and 83 .. This is a chicken **** thread,,, So thats what you call the guys who have the most defenses in history at MW ... reclining ? . Marvins got the one of toughest 10 fights in a row that have yet to find , cleans out the division twice, gets jobbed at getting his chance at a title fight and has to wait for the US GOVT to step in to make it happen ... and now hes being called a leisuring champ

 

From 1980 to 1986, Marvin Hagler fought 13 title fights.

From 1980 to 1983, Marvin Hagler fought nine title fights.

Marvin Hagler fought in three middleweight title fights in one year 1981 and three title fights in another (1983).

Whatever point you're trying to make, I'm not seeing it.

Are you saying Hagler was lazy? Are you saying he started a trend where champs just fought once or twice a year? Clearly that's not the case. Champs were doing that long before.

I've never heard anyone say, "I'm only going to defend once a year because that's what Marvin Hagler did."

Dumb thread.

 

This is getting more desperate by the minute HAHA .. Is this guy for real making a Ray Leonard example . .Hagler didnt get his title shot until his 50th ****ing fight at age 25 . SRL only has 40 fights in his entire career !!! hahahahha .. who is this OP clown here? and Benetitz LMFAO , He was champion at 17 after only 25 fights, and Duran only had 28 fights when he got his shot at age 21 ,,
Hagler put in more work than them ALL !!!

 

This is true....

 

Well, in the 1940s, World War II curtailed a lor of boxing activity. And Tony was on the ARMY if IIRC.

Joe Louis didnt defend his title that much either, in the 40s.

On the other hand, Carlos Monzon was a champion in the 1970s, and from the November of 1970 until 1977, he defended it a total of 14 times which is, if you count only two months of 1970 as a champion for him, about 2 9/12s title defenses a year for him?

Also Tommy Hearns, in 1983, zero defenses and one non title bout although I forgive him as he was injured with his right wrist, in 1985 no defenses, only that war with MMH, In 1986 he had three fights but only 1 defense...

 

I think he would fight any place/time if the money was right. It was his profession. As for McCallum. Their middleweight careers didn’t even overlap.

 

Yeah, that was the joke.

 

Re Hagler’s relative inactivity and in answer to the original thread premise, no I don’t think he was the guy who started it.

He was definitely busier in the early years of his reign though (80-83). In his first three full years as champ he amassed 8 defenses (3 in ‘81, 2 in ‘82 and 3 again in ‘83). He fought twice in ‘84 as well so 10 of his 12 successful defenses had happened by the end of 84.

It was really after that he noticeably slowed down. The Hearns fight was signed in ‘84 so that meant a six month gap from the Hamsho defense to the Hearns megafight. Then he got injured I think after the Hearns fight which ruled him out for the rest of ‘85. Also, by his own admission, he was struggling with motivation and considering retirement at the point that he faced Mugabi in ‘86.

Had Leonard not been tempted back I think we might have seen Marvin walk away that year but he kept going for the final big payoff against Sugar Ray which came in ‘87.

So I think the last 2 1/2 years of his reign is where he appears to be particularly inactive but there were legit reasons for that.

 

A word on this thread:
I don’t agree with the position @Saintpat is positing here and I’ve said as much above but I generally find him to be an excellent poster who usually adds good quality (not to mention amusing) comments to these boards.

I think a lot of the negative reaction here is based on Marvin Hagler being one of boxing most venerated champions so anyone putting forward something that could be perceived as being even vaguely critical of him is always likely to get it in the neck.

 

Agree
I remember at that time how bent I used to get about Hagler not fighting more often. Not even non title fights which were popular back then.

 

From 1970 until 1977, Carlos Monzon had 15 title bouts, 14 were successful title defenses, he retired as champion in August 1977. Had a unbeaten winning streak of 82 consecutive bouts from Oct 1964 until his retirement. And returned to the silver screen in his home country of Argentina.