By some accounts Hagler was lucky that he managed to badly cut Finnegan in both fights, the first fight in particular. Finnegan seemed to give as good as he got and was supposedly coming on in that fight while Hagler was starting to flag and not used to being timed and pushed back at that point in his career.
Hi Buddy. I have visited the Lavender Hill gym where both the Finnegan's trained on many occasions, and witnessed both brothers regularly spar 12/15 rounds, sometimes against each other, and like the Quarry's, they did not ask or recieve any quarter, despite the copious amount of Guinness they would consume, neither was lacking in the stamina department, they were larger than life characters, who added lustre to the british boxing scene back in the early to late 70s. stay safe TR, chat soon. Mike.
I think Hagler won the rematch a bit more convicingly. But the 1st fight Finnegan was apparently coming on very strong and had won numerous rounds in a row prior to the stoppage. Here's an old post below I found about the 1st meeting between the two. "these are the facts regarding the Hagler vFinnegan fights. I was in Finnegans corner for both these fights . Hagler won the 1st 4 rounds they drew the 5 th and finnegan won the 6th 7 th & 8 rounds . Finnegan would certainly have won the last two rounds as finnegan was coming on strong while hagler was fading badly. Kevin's cheeck bone was badly cut in the 7th from a clash of heads. Micky duff wanted the fight stopped at the end of the 8th and asked the ref to stop it, the ref refused because he said finnegan could go on to win. duff then asked the ringside doctor and he also refused agreeing with what the ref had said. So duff took it on himself to stop the fight. Freddie hill the chief corner man didn't want the fight stopped and Finnegan certainly didn't. duff didn't have the authority to stop the fight but did it anyway. Duff says he was concerned about the cut. I dought that duff has ever been concerned about a fighters cuts , only if it suits him. You can come to your own conclusion on this. Secondly, the reason why Kevin had the upper hand in the first fight is because Kevin trained 8 weeks for this fight and was probably the fittest he had ever been. He was also the best middleweight in the world at handling southpaws and had untold reserves of courage which was needed to stand and trade with Hagler and back him up. hagler was not as good going backwards as he was coming forward. The bad weather in Boston allowed Kevin to train another three weeks for the fight as the fight had to be prosponed for a few weeks, even then the snow was so bad the TV company could not get anywhere near the Boston Garden thats why there was no footage. Kevin went back for the return far to quickly and the cuts reopened in the 1st round. Would Kevin have won the return without the cuts reopening? I dought it. The first fight was so brutal Kevin was never quite the same fighter. He received a dis lodged retina in his left eye due to the impact of the clash of heads which caused the damage to his left cheek, so probably only had 50 per cent vision in that eye. But have no dought on that night at the garden finnegan was simply superb. I asked Kevin if he thought the clash of heads was deliberate on haglers part and He said who knows it was mayhem in there. It was like the 1st round of the Hagler v Hearns fight but for 8 rounds. Even today all these years later I still say that was the greatest fight I ever saw. I dought we will ever see fights like that again"
The first Watts fight was a bad decision. The draw w Seales was a bad decision and the first Vito fight was a bad decision. I'll give Leonard a razor thin edge in a fight that could have gone either way but one in which Leonard dictated the narrative ..