Marvelous Marvin Hagler speaks out about the Sugar Ray Leonard fight ~ Listen In

People always describe this as a 'controversial' fight and it really wasnt .. Marvin is bitter that he waited for Leonard for so long and then got beat, its as simple as that .. Leonard stole rounds, not because he manipulated the judges but because Hagler was slow and didnt land enough through the whole of the fight .. Leonard wins this fight by 2 rounds every time i watch it. Hagler was past his very best and he got edged out by the quicker, slicker Leonard, you cant win a fight just because you push the action, you have to land shots too and Marvin didnt land enough ..

As for this argument that Poor Marvin had to give up so much to land this fight, well nobody forced him to take the fight. He knew he Sugar Ray Leonard was the guy bringing 'the money' to the fight and he got paid the best purse of his career .. Marvin and his fans have been bleating about this decision for 20 years and it gets boring, it could of gone to Marvin but it could have gone to Leonard, in the end it went to Leonard and people need to get over it ....

If Marvin wants to see what real controversial decisions are then he really needs to watch,

Lewis v Holyfield
Whitaker v Chavez
Pintor v Zarate

Maybe then he'll understand that he got edged out in a very close fight, nothing more, nothing less, zero controversy ..

 

Is this what it means to be a tough guy? To ***** about a decision oneself made (concede the 12 rounds limit). He let Leonard get away with those things because he saw it as an easy pay-day, and when it comes back to bite him in the ass he whines about it 22 years later. What a man.

I know who "the little girl" is and it sure isn't the one who did the running in that ring, it's the one running his mouth off still.

 

My feelings are that the fight must be controversial because too many really good judges who were in attendance on the night scored it for Marv (McIlvanney, Harry Mullan, etc) but from a TV perspective I've always seen it as a Leonard win.

 

I pretty much agree with everything you said. My only comments are that I think if you're the champ you should be the one dictating terms, and if not, there should be standard size gloves, ring size, and rounds, for championship fights. Otherwise you have a situation where it starts out on an uneven playing field simply because of economics. And that really shouldn't influence a fight of this magnitude. (I know it does all the time, but I don't particularly like that aspect of boxing)

 

People aren't listening to the man's argument.

Hagler is arguing that you can't take it away from the champion under these circumstances because that's what everybody told him after the Antuofermo fight. Remember that? It was a draw because Hagler didn't do enough to take the title. Hagler is wondering, as he has in so many previous interviews, "Why doesn't that argument work for me?" As somebody who always had to worry when fights went the distance, wondering whether a double standard is being applied is hardly an illegitimate question. Like Holmes, Hagler didn't get the respect he deserved. That always seemed to be reserved for the glamour boys like Leonard.

Hagler made the fight with Leonard. He was aggressor. He threw many more punches and landed the harder shots. Leonard ran, clowned, and fouled. Some people like that ****, but it's not boxing. Furthermore, in a fight with that much controversy, a real champion fights a rematch to clear up the matter. Hagler makes this argument, too. And he's right again. No fight in history screamed rematch more than this one. But Leonard knew he lucked out the first time around. He was the news and he (and Dundee) gave a good enough performance to convince some people he had done enough to win. The second time around he knew the novelty of it wouldn't fly. Leonard needed the Hagler win on his record to make the historical case, especially after getting overwhelmed by Duran and looking so bad against Hearns. Having Hagler erase the win makes the reality of record all the more apparent.

Hagler is making the same arguments that a lot of us make, and we can't all be bitter, can we? Of course not. How can you be bitter for another person? You can't attribute Hagler's argument to bitterness, then. Especially when it's so logical. The Associated Press scored the fight for Marvin by an overwhelming majority. Contrast that with the score of that joke-of-a-paper the New York Daily News and we can see were the gravity lies. The best that Leonard nut huggers over at the New York Times and the Washington Post could do for their man was give him a draw, which means Hagler keeps the title. Go back and check the Associated Press score for the Antuofermo-Hagler fight. Now that was a close fight. Antuofermo did much better against Hagler than did Leonard and look where the controversy goes. Hagler recognizes the significance of the Antuofermo fight to this whole matter. He even acknowledges in the interview the problem with that fight.

Why this controversy about Hagler-Leonard persists is because people who side with Leonard have to keep putting out the idea that it was close and therefore a Leonard victory plausible. One of the dead giveaways is this qualification: "I thought Leonard won the fight and I am a huge Hagler fan." Right. Sure. That's the same qualifier we see on CSPAN when liberals call on the conversative line saying, "I'm a Republican, but I believe Obama is right for our country right now." We are on to this trick, folks. We get it. Another dead giveaway is that any score in which Leonard wins several more rounds that Hagler is a problem because "admittedly the fight was so close." They admit that Guerra's score was absurd. Yet Leonard-loving boxing publications in the aftermath of the fight extolled the virtues of his scoring. Why? Because they wanted the make the miracle as big a possible. But the people didn't buy it. The more time passed, the more people saw the fight beyond the hype the more they said, "What a second, who was pressing, who threw the most punches, who hurt who?" So people on the Leonard side have over time backed off the Guerra score and made up this myth about "it was anybody's fight."

Hagler is perfectly justified in making his points. And, truthfully, he doesn't sound bitter to me at all. He waited for Leonard to give him a rematch. When he realized Leonard wasn't going to do it, he retired. He didn't have anything left to prove. He wasn't going to break Monzon's record, so there was no need in continuing. It was time to move on to what he was planning on doing: acting. Hagler is a very reasonable fellow. And he was in great spirits for the interview. I appreciate the man for his down-to-earthness. He worked his tail off to give us a great ride. The man's got my respect.

 

Let's be honest, this is above you. Saying this about Hagler on ESB makes you look like a little girl. You should just leave it at bitter, I doubt you'd be saying this to Hagler if the opportunity ever came with him going on about SRL. You would be standing there smiling and nodding your head. Of course, it's Hagler who's the little girl. :rofl The man and guy that gave his heart, blood, and soul in the ring.

 

Pretty solid post. Offers an important perspective. I have to admit that I'm generally disagreeing with you and I can't say I agree with all your points. Really, what SRL did was "box" and it is boxing whether you're view is a different novelty on whole subject. You make a good point about one specific dreadful scoring card and you make a good point about Hagler's thoughts on "taking it to the champ" and how he got the raw end of the deal of a possible double standard. This all fair and I really don't think Hagler seems bitter he just seems completely genuinely honest. I do think he wanted Leonard so bad and believes he did win. The lack of the rematch intact with the consecutive requests before signing for the first fight should leave Hagler scratching his head and maybe not feeling that he can respect SRL. That's respectable and understandable.

I think from Hagler's view after giving up so much for the fight and waiting for so long only to lose a close fight and never get a rematch is tough. A SRL decision is completely fair and justified for me though. It's a close fight, though and one of the tougher ones to score (Can't remember how I scored it).

 

I agree with this completely.

 

Good call.

Hagler has always gotten my respect as a fan; much more so than Leonard who was only interested in leftover scraps then getting full recognition for the win.


Boxing never had anything to do with the outcome. Hagler would rather face a boxer but this business that Leonard's boxing was the cause for Hagler's downfall at long last is pure bs.

You could certainly make that case for Norris' landslide win over Leonard but for a split decision? As poorly as Hagler performed and with the open confession over the kind of condition how much he had lost? His fans are just asking for us to swallow too much **** at one time.

Anyone who tells me that Leonard's style had anything to do with it, I just refer them to the audio portion of round 6 and that stops all the bull**** immediately.

Throw in the Antuofuermo fight fight of 79 and the fact he snuffed the great boxer Hearns in 3, rendering his boxing approach as useless, and that stops the idiots dead in their tracks.

I also agree that Leonard wasnt a real champion over the fact that he feared taking the challenge of a younger, faster opponent. he was afraid he'd get shown up and have his head handed to him but he liked to fight but would only pick fights he felt he could win so of course he's going to pick someone like Lalonde over Nunn. He knew he couldnt hang with the better fighters in his own weight class so he bailed out looking for easy prey. He just wasnt my idea of a real champion. Bottom of the list in my book

 

You call Pintor v Zarate a bad call? Carlos got his clock cleaned late in the fight and Pintor was much stronger in the end when it counted. So much so it was hard to shake the impresion of him as a beaten fighter. Neither man was any more impressive than the other and the tactics of Zarate were feeble and minimally effective. It was a good call

 

"I think a close fight should go to the champion" What a load of bollocks. So if a challenger comes out on the scorecards as the winner in a close fight, the commission then changes the decision in favor of the champion simply because it was close. Thats cheating and makes no sense.

This shows that Hagler is in denial 22 years later.

 

I know he really didn't hold back there did he.

 

I completely disagree with the majority of posters. SRL did run. I do not give rounds for that any more than holding. These tactics are a sign of weakness, not strength. For this reason, I disagree with the general consensus that MMH lost the early rounds & the notion that his orthodox stance meant anything. The early rounds are the rounds that SRL ran the most. Please explain to me how SRL landed (exclude missed & blocked) better punches in those early rounds. When I listen with the sound off I don't see it. What is left is MMH looking to fight & SRL looking to avoid a fight in what I can only guess was an attempt to frustrate and tire MMH. Not a bad strategy, but I don't score rounds that way. Ali was also a mover & a master at frustrating his opponents, but no one can say he didn't come to fight. I also don't see the fault in MMH failing to cut off the gigantic ring. I'm not sure George Foreman could have cut off that ring. I'm left with an aggressor and a runner. I think SRL gave the performance of a life time, but it didn't win the fight in my mind.

 

I like Marvin....but he lost the fight at the negotiating table.

He made it a situation where he had to k.o. SRL...and when he didn't, then "Showboat Ray" won it on the cards.

Gene Fullmer, Rodrigo Valdez, or Tony Zale would have run Ray right out of the ring if he had pulled that *****-foot stuff at Ray's age.

 

Perhaps I should have done it before my last post, but I just watched the early rounds again. It did not change my opinion that MMH did not "give away" those rounds. I'm more than willing to credit a stick and move strategy, but SRL was almost all move with very little stick (that landed). If you watch without the sound and you forget who the boxers are, I fail to see how you come to the conclusion that SRL won the fight.