Other Than Hagler....

Agreed, but in August 1977 after the retirement of Carlos Monzon, both the WBA and WBC had Rodrigo Valdes and Bennie Briscoe ranked at no. 1 and no 2 respectively, both organizations agreed that the winner of Valdes and Briscoe would be declared as the new undisputed champion, Valdes won on points in 15 rounds. Although a legendary magazine, Ring magazine does not carry much weight when it comes to filling vacant titles, in the 1960's it did to a point. When Muhammad Ali was stripped of his license and title, Ring magazine was the only one who continued to recognize Ali as champion during his absence from 1967-1970.

 

They didnt want to fight him and Hagler wasnt the popular fighter , ... Ted Kennedy and the US Govt got involved and basically told the sport of Boxing , give Hagler a shot or we are coming after you ..And thats how he finally got his shot ... there is a great ESPN documentary on Hagler

 

In my opinion I think that the only reason that Marvelous Marvin Hagler was kept away from a title shot in the mid to late 1970's was that he suffered two losses to relatively unknown fighters (Willie The Worm Monroe, Bobby Watts) and the middleweight division consisted of Carlos Monzon, who was the longtime WBA champion, Rodrigo Valdes, who had the WBC belt, challengers like Bennie Briscoe, Tony Mundine, Tony Licata and Gratien Tonna were more in demand to watch. The boxing world was more interested in fights between Monzon and Valdes than involving any newcomers. As great as Hagler would later become, he was too green in 1976 for the likes of Monzon and Valdes.

 

Yup. That and so many more reasons indicate why he had such a chip on his shoulder.

 

Hagler was avoided by many simply because he was a southpaw. There was a real superstition about southpaws for decades in boxing and a lot of guys just wouldnt fight them.

 

Agreed, Rodrigo Valdes was a shot fighter in 1979, he had two losing battles against Carlos Monzon in 1976 and 1977, Marvelous Marvin Hagler would have defeated Valdes who also lost his title to Hugo Corro in April 1978, also lost in a rematch in Nov 1978.