Which fighter had Hagler in the most trouble?

Duran did not hurt Hagler, Hagler was expecting a different fight from Duran, and Marvin did not adjust well to it until later. But once he adjusted he started winning the rounds and won the fight relatively easy.

 

Ok. Tell me about them. Monroe seems to have outboxed Marvin in the first pretty clearly, right? Was the second competitive until the stoppage or was it all Hagler?

 

Yeah, this is really being overstated. Duran only won 3-4 rds of that fight if I remember my card right, even though he made most rounds competitive. It's just surprising that Duran could make it so relatively difficult for Hagler, when he was so easily handled by Benitez, Hearns and even Laing. But it's just one of those things I guess. I would like to have seen Hagler against more skilled boxer types, though.

Minter looked pretty good, though. How good a boxer do you reckon he was?

 

Hagler completely over rated Duran ... Marvin wanted to impress and he gace Duran far too much respect .. That being said the fight was not close and Duran never came close to hurting Marvin ...

 

In the first fight Monroe was just brilliant! He looked to have utilized a little of what Watts did with movement against hagler, and implemented better. My favorite Hagler quote on this fight was "I still need learn a few things, but I have a felling Willie already knows them".

The 2nd fight (first and last time I have set foot in the wasteland of Boston!) I couldn't really give you a score card, but would term it a fight that Hagler controlled. I would not have guessed that the Worm would get stopped (Keep in mind that he is my all time favorite fighter so nostalgia may taint my memory) but lost a clear decision. Monroe had only been stopped once and I veiwed it as a fluke and will never for the life of me understand how he lost to Love...I still don't get it. I guess I would say that Monroe was competitive, but at the same time he was never able to figure out Marvin to be able to do the things he needed to win. The punch that dropped him though was a brilliant (or horrible depending on your perspective) left, and I just remember putting my head down and shaking my head! Still very young I guess I realized for the first time that Willie just was not...???

In my mind I guess he will always be the best (and the win over Hagler justifies my right to predict Monroe over every Prime MW ever! LOL!)! I always thought he would be champ...Oh well!

 

Thank you for that. It's well known that Duran said after fighting Marv that, "All his power is concentrated in his right. His left is dead." Hagler did however drop Antuofermo with a southpaw left cross in their rematch (catching Vito moving in), but I'm indeed hard pressed to come up with other examples where his left alone was responsible for producing a knockdown or knockout. It seems to me that this usually happened after his right inflicted the initial damage.

Yeah, David Love was a competent veteran, and Bennie Briscoe, Tap Tap Makathini, and Marcos Geraldo 2X look good on any resume.

That Love stopped The Worm, Boogaloo and Bad News Wallace in back to back to backs doesn't seem to fit though. Phil, didn't David have Angelo Dundee's backing for those bouts? Maybe the results were mobbed up. (Angie later showed a rare lapse in judgment when he let Love out for the ninth round against Curtis Parker, who finished him off before the bell to start the action stopped resonating. I remember Dundee pulling David up to his feet to begin administering to him. Today, you'd have a trio of neurologists checking his pupils and asking him questions before he was even allowed to sit on his stool.)

 

That's really interesting that mate, thanks. It would have been excellent seeing all the Philly middleweight fights in the 1970s. The poster Raging Bull once claimed this fight was actually filmed (despite the snow, but not shown on TV).

 

Although Willie didn't hurt Marvin as much as Duran did . Here is the fight report from Boxing News that I posted on Classic a few years ago (for anyone who has never read a report on this fight)...

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Thanks. Nice read that!

Obviously Marvis was already seen as a world class fighter at that point (at least by that reporter).

 

Nigel Collins, he's still editor of The Ring the last time I looked. Interesting that he didn't give Marv a round until the 8th. Willie really did a number on him .

 

To be fair to the Classic Forum, two of guys here citing him are top end extremists.

Duranimal had/has Duran winning the decision vs Hagler, thinks it was a slight robbery.(not joking)

And hegrant famously quoted somethng along the lines of, Montreal Duran, that night, would've defeated every other champion of the weight classes above that night, right upto LHW, the only exception being Holmes at HW.

 

Hearns....hm John Mugabi.

 

Yeah, the best chin I've seen.

But he was never really hit repeatedly by huge punchers except in the fight v. Mugabe. Who knows what would have happened had he gotten hit as often as LaMotta by punchers LaMotta faced? Or if he moved up and fought Spinks, as some speculated he ought to do?

 

THe Knockdown Roldan scored might have not been legit but i do think he stunned him and heldhisown for most of the fight....

 

Yeah, he was landing some monster shots while it lasted. Hagler took them well, though.