Jones v Hagler @ MW

This idea that Jones had a ****py chin is IMO per 100% fantasy. Not until he was past 35 and had gone from 175 to 193 and back down again had it ever been an issue. I don't recall many fighters at all who went down in weight in their mid 35's or later and unless it can be explained to me differently, l believe that played a large part in him losing his punch resistance and his speed.

Either way, it would be unwise in my view to base the outcome of a mythical match between the two solely on the chin factor. And this us coming from a huge Hagler fan.

 

When did Hagler become a one-punch ko artist? And when was Jones ever KO'd by someone not at least 20 lbs heavier than Hagler?

If Duran and Leonard could take Hagler's punches I'm quite sure Jones would as well, if the stipulations weren't such that he was a weight-drained wreck in the ring.

Jones by points (if he gets time to re-hydrate).

 

he wasn't NOTED as a one punch KO artist but frequently got sudden knockouts. Prime Marvin could take a man whenever he wanted

Scypion
Monroe
Hearns
Lee
Obel 2
Hamsho 2
Hamani
Colbert

Jones was great. It's just that his chin wasn't

 

That's a fair point, but you only seem to be looking from Marvin's perspective.

How would Marvin have handled Roy's blazing speed, with lead shots etc, coming from unorthodox angles? I think Roy's movement would have caused him tremendous problems. Look at Leonard's movement against him in 87. Yes, both guys were badly faded compared to their primes. But that fight tells me that Ray's movement would always have caused him problems, as would Roy's. I think Roy could have landed flurries and then jumped back out of range. Again, Roy was bigger, heavier and much faster, with genuine one punch knockout power in either hand. Marvin would have had his hands full, as would Roy with Marvin's pressure.

 

correction: only MARVIN was badly faded.

Now you can't say such things like "this tells me Ray would have always caused Marvin problems"

Remember, he had his chances much earlier as he was cleared to fight him in 1982, but publicly backed out.

again, 1984, and abruptly QUIT. He had his chances

 

Would you agree that Monroe, Duran and Leonard was the best boxers that Marvin faced?

In any case, all of them gave him trouble without having anything near Jones's combination of size, speed, power and reflexes.

He's 3-2 against these men, and only one of them was even a natural middle - during the same day weigh-in era. Jones was a huge MW during his time there, around 180 lbs in the ring.

Jones vulnerability against punchers that were much larger than Hagler has been noted many times in this thread. But I haven't seen much said about Hagler's vulnerability against boxers that were much smaller than Jones.

 

Vito gave Marv problems and wasn't considered a boxer

nor was Roldan

so it's not a question of style so much as was Marv up to his usual self

 

Jones' chin was an issue north of middleweight. I'd pick Jones here, but in what fantasy world would he dare take this fight?

 

In the same one he took on one of the top p4p fighters in Toney, I suppose.

After seeing how hapless Toney was against him, it will always be tempting to see it as a stylistic mismatch that Toney couldn't win. But I don't think that was the feeling at the time.

A razor sharp counter puncher with good speed and power can be poison for a speedster with flawed fundamentals. Just as a much more inexperienced Toney showed against Nunn.

 

If you want to go there, you might as well cancel the whole classic section.

The classic section is largely based on mythical match ups and if the reply to these match ups is one would never meet the other, than what's the point of even discussing this topic?

I know you have the ability to suspend reality, I've seen it time and time again, with your Vitali worshiping nonsense.

 

Most will be looking from Roy's perspective, so that's a matter of balance that somebody advocates for Hagler.

Peak Hagler wasn't slow, and could well have been the greatest southpaw of the championship distance era.

There are a couple of unknowns at work here. Nobody really tried moving on Hagler between Geraldo and SRL, a period of seven years. And Roy was elusive enough that his chin wasn't really tested at 160.

 

We know that you have a hatred for Ray, so it's pointless even discussing it.

 

Why wouldn't he have taken the fight?

 

:good

 

This raises another interesting question. Hearns was certainly no midget, even weighed in officially at a half pound more than MMH, and would stop Andries for the WBC LHW Title less than two years later.

Roy boxed Hopkins as he did because of an injured right. Presumably, such fantasy bouts as this entail both participants at optimal health for the moment in their careers that they square off. How would RJJ-Nard I have unfolded differently if Jones, Jr. entered that contest with two healthy hands?

With the physical attributes you describe for Roy here, can we be sure he's going to apply elusive movement carrying two guns as Hagler himself did against Bennie Briscoe? (I think that may have been the last time Marv stuck and laterally used the perimeter of the ring like that. Lateral mobility remained important for him to obtain the proper punching angle, but with Bad Bennie in the Spectrum, he properly used his reach advantage to keep his body away from Briscoe's hook and aging legs, taking no chances after even Russell Peltz acknowledged he'd been screwed by the decision in favor of Boogaloo a couple years earlier. Interestingly, Bobby did injure Hagler's body in sparring a couple years after their rematch.)

For me, this match makes for good speculation because of the variables and unanswered questions involved. If MMH attempts to make a war of it like round one of Hagler-Hearns, will Roy accept that challenge and trade with the smaller man, or will he attempt what Marv did with Briscoe, regardless of his slightly shorter reach? (Again, Hagler was a jab oriented southpaw with a 75 inch reach, while the left hook oriented Bad One had a 71 inch reach. Bennie had a fantastic power jab himself by the way, but not the reach and mobility to win clear cut decisions against world class competition with it. He used it relatively infrequently as a setup for his poison.)

MMH punched out harder hitting opponents than himself in part through superior punch resistance. Mugabe, Hearns, Scypion, Sibson, Caveman Lee and Cyclone Hart may all have been bigger punchers than Hagler. Does RJJ play it safe, or does he risk his chin to discover how hard Marv's right jab is? Hearns broke his right hand on Hagler's skull. Does Roy find himself with an injured right after the bell rings as he entered the ring for Hopkins with?

For whatever it's worth, here's the first career knockdown sustained by RJJ, and it comes from a southpaw, something more than a flash KD, as evidenced by how Jones, Jr. smartly clinches his way through the remaining 35 seconds of action in round eight. MMH was a far better finisher when he had a man stunned like that. (Roy was prime here, 29 years old, and coming off his stoppage of Virgil Hill, while Lou Del Valle, although a LHW was not a puncher in Hagler's class. Incidentally, there were common sparring partners of Marv and some of the LHW champions of the early 1980's who claimed they were hit harder by Hagler.):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jp7h37fMneg

Could Hagler's left cross do this? Duran claimed that all Marv's power was concentrated in his right, that "his left is dead."

Hagler-Antuofermo II, 2:18:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MYz2laxmY4

Tarver, Lebedev and Calzaghe were all southpaws, so southpaws account for his first career knockdown, his first stoppage defeat and decision loss. Del Valle was his first southpaw opponent of durability (never stopped in his career) following barely two minutes of action against Antoine Byrd over three years earlier, and the nature of the Del Valle knockdown with the way Roy's head is turned when that left connects makes me wonder who's really going to have problems with the angles punches are coming from. RJJ has been no Arguello when dealing with southpaws from the orthodox stance, and Hagler was no Del Valle in quality of boxing or punching.

Certainly Roy wasn't well versed in southpaw experience at MW, and Del Valle suggests Marv might be able to set up the kill with a single stunner, being a vastly superior finisher, not overanxious and wild like Lou got in making himself available to be tied up and neutralized.