Just finished Hagler-Duran...

...for the first time. I purposely didn't score it so I could just have it on in the background and enjoy it. Three things jump to my mind:

1)It was CLOSE. I've read various reports on this fight and many feel that it was a clear win for Hagler...this fight is many things but not clear. There were about 6-8 of the middle/late rounds that were exceptionally hard to score.

2)Duran was brilliant. Pure and simple, he was completely brilliant. He lost but this is one of the best performances I've seen of Duran because he took on a monster of a middleweight (one of the all time best) in his prime and outboxed and outfought him for stretches

3)The commentators were so ****ing biased. I get it: you like and respect Hagler. They were always overcompensating for the crowd screaming for Duran with every punch by diminishing his performance and accomplishment. They undermined his counters and though Hagler's combinations were outstanding, they decided that his punches were the only effective ones in that fight.

Just my thoughts anyway

 

totally agree. think it was round 6 that he started looking like hagler: marching forward, staying balanced, unloading beautiful combinations up and down the ladder, looking confident and making every shot count. if he had done that for ALL the first 6, i'm not sure duran makes it to 10

 

it's tough for me. duran always looked worst and more tired at the end of the rounds, but duran got a ton of great work done during the rounds and hagler was just too hesistant to take some of them. i could see an argument for giving duran 7 rounds

 

good and fair card:good i thought duran's generalship completely befuddled hagler at times. hands of stone was attempting to lay traps and stayed away from brawling in the middle rounds. when he poped in, threw crisp punches and bounced out, hagler had no answers. that right hand of his was very strategically used and he worked that cut like a master. the fact though is, the crispest and best punchers were hagler's but i definitely feel the fight was dictated by what duran did, what he chose not to do and what he forced hagler to do

 

exactly! totally agree and that's what i'm thinking to. frankly, hagler looked like a novice at times (and this was a peak hagler). still, i couldn't make a compelling that duran won, just that he did way better than he should have

 

9-5-1? if so, that's fair enough