Marvelous Marvin Hagler returns to "On the Ropes Boxing Radio"

I love it.

 

...See? I knew, whatever he said about Pacweather would be used by some Pacweather fan like ammunition. http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249036

 

You sure called it. (Edit: Whoa, more right than you know: http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249072 )

That interview was really great to listen to. He's kinda funny, he kept cracking up. Seemed like he was really enjoying himself. Great work.

 

Marvelous Marvin Hagler is a champion with class whose actions spoke much louder than words!

 

Has anyone ever heard him mention who the hardest puncher was he ever faced? Before He started pressing Hearns,he was sure rocked in the opening round.

 

atsch And the predictable arguments have ensued.

 

Spud1 is smoother than Orlando Canizales and Ayub Kalule combined.

 

That thread was painful, I had to stop reading.










:verysad

 

It is amazing to think but the Hearns fight made his career. Had he had the Duran fight where he won but it was not a great fight and went 15, and then lost to Ray, his reign would not have been remembered too well. The Hearns fight makes his career shine. Somehow one fight makes all the other fights come out. This was a great interview. He always gives John Mugabi credit. John deserves it. In a way Marvin beat John up so much and John never recovered to get his confidence back.

 

HAGLER:
I would have to say that the biggest highlight of my career would have to be Thomas Hearns.

CIANI: You definitely left the sport when you were on top of your game and you said that you were happy with your decision to stay retired. I’m wondering, though, was there ever any point where you did think about coming back after the Leonard fight and where you considered giving it another go and giving it another run?

HAGLER: Well you know, in my opinion, when I started watching these younger fighters in my division coming up and then you start thinking I can take that guy and whatever like that. You got to smack yourself in the head, ‘Hello Marvin! You’re retired! Let them guys do their own thing’ and it’s great entertainment for you. But hopefully there’s somebody who will try to do the same thing I did and bring the dignity into my middleweight division. So that’s basically what I was looking at, but again, I’m glad that I’m out of there. I’m tied up in chains. No more ice. I think ice was my best friends. I’d sleep with it every night.

CIANI: Now changing things up a little bit about your career, Marvin. One of the fights that I think there was some talks about was the fight between you and Michael Spinks and I’m wondering, how serious were those talks and how do you think you would have done in a fight like that moving up in weight?

HAGLER: Well basically there was nothing in the light heavyweights, anyway, at that time. Now the light heavyweight division looks a lot better than it did in many years since you had guys like Roy Jones who kind of controlled that light heavyweight division, because really, it was always a weak division. My division in the middleweight division was a very tough division when you talk about the guys that we’re talking about right now. The light heavyweights, there wasn’t much. As far as Michael Spinks was concerned, we should have fought him in the amateurs back in the AAU years ago. So I don’t feel as though that at that time, that I was putting on fifteen pounds like these guys are doing today. If it was anything that was going to happen, I would have had him come down to my weight which would be 160. So that’s what happened in that area.

JENNA: When you speak of Mayweather, he’s a guy that always wants concessions. You fought a guy yourself that liked concessions and that was Sugar Ray Leonard. Looking back at that fight there, do you at all regret giving those types of concessions to him and do you think Pacquiao should stay with what he wants to do to make this fight happen?

HAGLER: Well the thing is, when you want to retire you want to go out knowing you fought the best in the world and this was the only fight that was left for me that meant anything. So normally, you would say ‘I’ll give you anything that you want. I’ll tell you what I’ll do—I’ll even fight you in your living room. I’ll come to your house’.


JENNA: You certainly did make that fight happen. When people look at it today, though, they watch the fight, everyone scores it differently. Yourself there, the last time we had you on you said you broke all of your TVs when you watch it. When you look at it now, do you have any regrets about the way you fought that fight? You fought orthodox for the first few rounds. Do you at all regret doing that?

HAGLER: No. If I look at it again, I’ll probably break another television. But anyway, I feel as though I did the best that I could do, whether I was fighting orthodox or whatever like that. The main thing is not trying to go out there and try to knock the guy out. The main thing is just to win that fight and that’s what I felt as though I did, and still do inside my heart, I don’t feel any differently. I still feel like a champion like I told you before and nothing has changed


Thanks for your questions, hope you enjoyed the interview :good

 

CIANI: Great, it’s great to have you back Marvin. One of the questions I wanted to as you Marvin, was I recently conducted a survey with a bunch of longtime boxing fans to rate the best middleweights of all time. I had you at number one on my list, but when I tabulated the final results, you finished #3 behind Carlos Monzon and Harry Greb. I’m wondering Marvin, where would you rank yourself in middleweight history?

HAGLER: Well you know those are great champions and because I think I was a throwback from the old days, like a Sugar Ray Robinson and Gene Fullmer and guys I would say like Jake Lamotta, it was something that I had to do to bring back the respect to the middleweight division. At the time coming up, when the heavyweight division was really notable by Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier and all these tough guys in the light heavyweight division, you had Bob Foster. In the middleweights we were lacking something, so I was very honored in the sense that I finally started gaining my recognition as one of the top middleweights in the world. But for me still, I feel as though Carlos Monzon was a great champion. It took ten years and we would have loved to have fought him if we had the opportunity, but unfortunately that never happened. So just continuing and looking at guys like Emile Griffith and all these great middleweights. It’s always been the toughest division out there in the world of boxing I feel.

CIANI: Now you made mention of this. One of the fights that a lot of fans always talk about on these message boards when they come up with hypothetical match-ups between different fighters in their primes would have been a fight between you and Monzon. I’m curious Marvin, how do you think you would have fared? How do you think a fight between you and Monzon, when each at your best, would have played out?

HAGLER: Well I believe behind my orthodox style I’d probably be fighting him on the inside to get inside his long reach. Just knowing that this guy had a powerful right hand, I mean Monzon had one of the best right hands in the business also besides Tommy Hearns. So I kind of learned a lot and I think I would have given him a lot of fits.

CIANI: Since your retirement, the best middleweight that’s graced the ring in boxing has been Bernard Hopkins. He actually came in at #5 on my survey. Marvin, what did you think of Bernard Hopkins during his middleweight reign as champion where he had a record twenty title defenses? What did you think of him as a champion in the middleweight division?

HAGLER: Well I give a lot of respect with Bernard because I met him one day. I believe that he’s going to be a future Hall of Famer. I like the fact that he’s another one like myself that tried to keep the middleweight division alive, which he did. As far as the twenty defenses, I was glad in a sense that I retired, because I probably would have continued on fighting again. So I think that was the best thing that happened for me.

:smoke

 

HAGLER: With the Pacquiao and Mayweather fight, I think that Mayweather might be a little scared. But then there’s another thing, and he’s almost looking like a Sugar Ray Leonard in the type of sense where he is dictating all of the time. Hello! If you’re going to fight, let’s fight! Let’s stop all this stuff. Let’s just get it on! I mean that is what boxing is about. So he’s trying to gain more money or whatever. I mean you already made enough money. Do you want to fight the guy? Yes or no? And I think that Pacquiao is saying, ‘Come on! Let’s do it today’. But I wouldn’t wait around for Mayweather. I would take another fight and still make as much money as I can and then leave the game while I’m still on top.

"Little scared" that set off the Flamos