The best light heavyweight that Marvin Hagler could beat?

Hagler and Monzon had completely different frames where Monzon was HUGE MW and Hagler a smaller middle. Monzon hit like a mule and could go up in weight no problem. Back in that day weigh ins for Carlos were often in the mornings where he would have to run or spare rounds to make weight days and up until weigh ins. His ring weight for the Napoles fight was 169 for example. Monzon could have gone up no problem with his frame, his ability to measure the distance, pace, and stamina that never died.

 

I agree Monzon could have carried the weight frame-wise no problem, unlike Hagler, or at least 168. I only mention him because he's the other all-time great middle that sometimes has this question asked as well.

I do not think, physically and technically as a boxer-puncher, the things that made him dominant and elevated him to greatness at 160 were likely to carry up any better than Hagler's style or build was. His whole offensive and defensive approach was heavily built around being the larger man, to a greater extent than just about any other great middle.

 

Hagler wouldn't beat Qawi in 10 goes lol

 

what do you mean by " larger man" ? Monzon fought plenty of good sized middles.

Of course it would carry up noticeably better than Hagler.. Having the frame to do it has everything to do with losing or not losing your technical ability. They are 100% directly correlated. Like other poster have already stated, Hagler didnt have the frame to do it. Thus he would absolutely lose his speed and those fast accurate 3 - 4 punch combos if forced to come in at 170 plus, imo. In Contrast, since Monzon clearly had the frame to do it no problem and already was fighting well above 160, Carlos wouldnt lose any technical ability. Hell bean pole Hearns went from 147 to cruiserweight because he had the frame to do it. And Hearns had no where near the strength, chin , stamina, or punch resilience as Monzon did. Hearns had his hand speed, often the height and reach adv. , and his power which was suspect at times with his years of hand problems. At 175, Carlos would still fight at his methodical pace not losing any technical ability coming in at 175. Again . look what hearns did. Carlos would most definitely lose his advantages of mostly having the height and reach adv. which would obviously matter. but still if he moved up to 175 and was there for a year and didnt go back down, he could compete there at a high level no problem, imo. Trying to draw a comparison to Hagler and Monzon having the ability to move up couldn't be more of an apples and oranges comparison frame wise and technical ability wise, but yes both of them didnt so fair enough to your points

 

Hagler would box circles around a 175 Canelo

 

how much would he weigh in doing so? maybe 166 ? He would have put in a Greb vs Tunney type of performance, Against Canelo? VERY DOABLE

 

What do i mean by larger man? Isn't it obvious....he was the larger man in almost all of his fights at middleweight, usually enjoying a height, reach and strength advantage, or at least two of the three in any one fight. Nobody is disputing he fought good sized middles. They were still all smaller and giving up physical advantages to him.

I am a big Monzon fan (purely in the ring...the man was a scumbag), but I simply don't see his methodical, maximise my range and strengh advantages stand-up style translating well to 175 and still being an excellent or great fighter and it's only partially do with physical reasons. A good, maybe very good one? sure, but far too many of the traits that made him special at 160 are gone at that weight. As i said, I only mentioned him alongside Hagler because they're the two all-time great middles who didn't compete at the weight that I don't see suiting it...the reasons are different for each.

Why are you bringing Hearns up as if he didn't also lose quite a lot at middleweight and above? Do you consider Hearns an all-time great middleweight or light heavy? I consider him a very good, but not great middleweight and a rather beatable 175lber that we barely saw campaign there. Besides it's not a one to one comparison, they might be lanky-tall standup fighters, but a lot of the nuances and strengths/weaknesses of approach between the two are different once you dig into it...the reasons I feel Monzon would lose a lot of what made him truly special up at 175 are only some, but not all the same reasons that saw Tommy struggle more at 160/175.

Hearns main issues up at 160/168 were his durability,strength, defence and stamina. His power and speed (two huge components of his style ever being so effective in a way they simply weren't for Carlos) carried well.

Monzon meticulously fine-tuned his entire offensive and defensive approach around usually being the larger, stronger man. He was a master at exploiting those advantages, to mitigate the fact that he rarely was faster than his opposition, but if he moves up to 175 he's now of average height/reach and probably below average strength...he can't effectively use that backfoot style of controlling the distance and pace of a fight with jab, threat of right hand and defence anymore...all the awkward swaying and leaning back that some criticised as being ugly, yet was undeniably immensely effective and cleverly employed to ensure smaller men were always missing by small margins, on the edge of over-extending, and needing to get right into the wheelhouse of his right-hand regularly.

Yeah, all that's gone against most opponents at 175, quickly turned from a key strength to a liability that would see him eating flush punches with his chin up and unable to control the distance anymore in remotely as effective a manner. He'd be quickly ruing that he never really mastered mid-range, lateral head and upperbody slips to the level of a lot of other elite boxer-punchers/technicians. His is a bad, bad defensive approach for moving up significantly in weight against excellent/great fighters.

That leads directly into ensuring he's not got a comfort zone for his own heavier punches and counter jabs. Does he have the speed of hand or foot, overall reflexes, or slickness to change things up much? No, not imo, his style was meticulously structured around not being notable in those areas in the first place, but now that ability to drift along in 2nd gear for the first third of the fight and take the measure of opponents? seriously compromised. Having great ring-generalship is always a necessity for moving up, but Monzon's is locked in tight to having physical advantages. Speaking of which, he's no longer going to have the draining strength advantage that was important in roughing fighters up at closer range and causing them to fade down the stretch; he's more often than not going to be the weaker fighter. Power-wise, even if he carries most of it up, he's probably not going to be more than a good, hard hitter at the weight, one unlikely to now be landing at a high enough rate ( while sufficiently untouched by the incoming ) to implement his favoured "slowly shift through the gears and start dominating physically, circa 7th-9th" way of fighting.

he's got the chin (if it carries well, that chin-up defensive style might ensure it doesn't), smarts, range, and likely enough power to still be a good tough opponent, but what I expect to see at 175 is a far more hittable fighter stripped of all his physical and tactical comfort zone that was so important to his technical approach, and in making him such an imposing monolith of a fighter. That 15lbs is going to chip away at all those edges that make the often surprisingly short difference between an all-time great and a very good fighter, revealing a far more generic, one-paced standup fighter without great finesse or variety to compensate, and now with some glaring technical flaws that his size kept previously hidden.

 

You are just proving my point. why wouldn't I bring up Hearns? He is the perfect example of a fighter who moved up in weight and had success. Yet he also got sparked 3 times early up in weight. He also got stopped at 147 by a bigger stronger fighter in SRL. You are saying Monzon couldnt have moved up in weight and been successful at all. Monzon had that ATG jab , same as hearns had one. Both fighting behind it. But Monzon was ever never stopped, had much more stamina than Herarns did, was a lot more punch resitance than Hearns, and was stronger, Ring IQ by a country mile, yet Hearns had success moving up but Monzon couldnt. That is laughable actually

what a crock a shite this is. Monzon is now void of everything he did great by going up in weight. You will be hard pressed to find Monzon in big trouble, he was on balance with Solid defense. More hittable? BFD ... so was Hearns.

This is probably the root of it here. why mention it then?

Monzon could have moved up No problem. Hagler had much more of a hill to climb. Thats not even debatable, your equal comparison is hogwash. Mundine fought up to lht Heavyweight also btw ( KO 7 Monzon ). and Same as Bogs below.

This is Rings mag year end 1973 Lht heavy rankings , Do you notice who is ranked number 3 contender? This was around the Monzon/Napoles fight.
Bob Foster, Champion

1. 1. John Conteh
   2. Len Hutchins
   3. Tom Bogs .. Monzon sparked him in 5
   4. Victor Emilio Galindez
   5. Pierre Fourie
   6. Maxie Smith
   7. Chris Finnegan
   8. Bobby Cassidy
   9. Richie Kates
   10. Andy Kendall

 

Hagler just had too much stamina and skill, Canelo at 175 would be in slow motion compared to SRL and would gas fairly easily, Hagler had the chin and ring IQ to not get caught with anything too crazy but could also survive some, I don't see Canelo's body shots really bothering Hagler, I think Hagler would have a very decisive upper hand by about 8 and could pour it on through 15, imagine him not switching stance until 10 or 12 and then a gassed 175 Canelo has to make it another 3 to 5 rounds