i for one think the hagler of the mugabi fight was not a top hagler and that the hagler of the leonard fight had fallen even further ,so what i am asking is if hagler had fought herol graham instead of leonard who do you think would of won over 12 rounds ,in vegas same night of the leonard fight sorry if this has been done before
Herol Graham would have had the ability to shade a decision over the Hagler of 1986/87 but would he have carried it out ? A supremely gifted boxer,Herol seemed to fall short on the big occasions. I'm not counting the Julian Jackson fight,because that punch would have taken anyone out. With a bit more workrate,he'd have got the nod over Mike McCallum,and it all seemed to go out the window against Sumbu Kalambay in 1987. For some weird reason Graham tried to be the aggressor in that one. Shame,because he could have been World Champion.
Marvin was not a fighter who should have ever taken any time off. His strength was putting it all together and winning with experience, his jab and activity and skills. When he took time off he was rusty and it took him more rounds to warm up. Against Leonard that hurt him. I do admit that the Hagler who fought Leonard was the worst Hagler we ever saw, but I wonder how much of that was Ray studying him and how much was Marvin being inactive and aging. One of Hagler's weaknesses was adjustments. Against Duran and Mugabi he expected them to be more aggressive and they both sat back and counterpunched. Marvin had a hard time getting back into the groove once he had to fight a different fight. As for all the fab 4, the one weakness Hagler had over all of them was his ability to change his tactic during a fight. The other guys could do that better.
