His rise in weight, output and rejuvenation coincided with Mackie Shilstone. Also, Hagler and Monzon fought in the days of 15 rounders and same day weigh ins. This isn’t to say that Bernard wasn’t a legit badass, once-in-a-generation fighter, legit HOFer or anything because he’s all of that, but he’s definitely a modern era great. And there’s no way in hades that Hagler would’ve ever flopped hoping to get a DQ like Hopkins did with Dawson.
This might be sacrilege to say, but, gulp, I'm going to say, it, Hopkins probably had the better overall resume. And this is coming from a huge Hagler fan. Not saying Hopkins necessarily beats Hagler head to head (and I do think such a fight would be a VERY close decision), but the number orf high quality wins Hopkins had over such a long period of time at various weights, including a lengthy dominant reign at middle, gives him the edge. BUT, I certainly would not strongly debate the issue. Hagler beating guys like Duran and Hearns, among others, and being as dominant as he was as champion, certainly gives him a good argument too.
The 15 round point is moot for me, or actually goes the other way - Hagler fought past 12 rounds 2 times in his life, Monzon 6. Hagler fought past 10 rounds 7 times in his life, Monzon 10 i think. Hopkins went past 10 rounds a whopping 29 times. The same day weigh in is also irrelevant as the era's playing fields were the same for everyone. Tho unlikely at the end of the day we don't truly know what guys would have done if they fought another 10+ years as Hopkins did against the era's top guys. One thing is for sure - lots of losses would have piled up.
Marvin Hagler fought the better men at middleweight, much deeper than Hopkins at 160 against 160 lbers- always felt Hopkins fought in a weak era at 160 but had some good wins moving up- Marvin fought Hearns-Vito A- Mintor-Mugabi-Roldon- Hamsho- Sibson- Duran-Leonard- etc. I dont think Hopkins could survive Haglers competition at 160
I didn’t know about the stats of how many times Hagler and monzon fought 15 rounds- you make a good point and thanks for that. Also fwiw, I think Hopkins could’ve been a 15 round fighter. I do think the same day weigh ins matter though; Hopkins was always considered a big middleweight and it doesn’t seem likely to me that he could’ve consistently trained to go 15 rounds while simultaneously being concerned about weighing 160lbs 10 hours before fight time. If that did affect him and he had to move up in weight, he would’ve had to face Jones Jr again, seeing that there would be no 168lb division. Of course, even in saying that I’m being selective in how I interpret the speculative evidence. Suffice it to say that I believe the older fighters had it a bit tougher; by that I mean they had to train for 15 rounds, at least sometimes, (whether the fights lasted that long or not), had to weigh in on the day of the fight, had fewer belts to fight for (and thereby had less chances to be a “champion”, have less title defenses etc) and had fewer weight classes (in this case 168). Under those circumstances I’m just not so sure that Hopkins would’ve been as great as he was. On the flip side, I think if you transported Hagler and Carlos up to the 90s and 2000s, and under the new rules with more belts, those guys would’ve still been ATG middleweights and moved up and dominated Tarver, Wright, Pavlik and Pascal. Throw in the “training” services of Mackie Shilstone and its a slam dunk. Just my opinion.
Enjoyed the exchange of idea's even if we are slightly apart on some area's mate. Via your criteria Hagler and Carlos may not have been big enough to do much at 175, hard to say. Remember too Hopkins won all the belts anyway. As it stands we know what they all did and didn't get done vs the equality of their own era's. For me that's enough for Hopkins to ease ahead, for others it isn't of course.
Maybe.But there is still the fact that Hopkins is the oldest man to ever win a belt and was able to compete at the elite level until the age of 50.That is just extraordinary.
Agree with this. Hopkins was a fighter that had a soft division and matured into something exceptional. Hagler had a rocky ride in a hard division and ran through all the roadblocks head first.
I would slightly favour Hopkins as greater as Hopkins has the most middleweight title defences with some credible wins including Tito. He also became the oldest ever champion in boxing. But it extremely close and I would favour Hagler in a prime vs prime
Where it is true Hopkins is a physical marvel that no one in history can compare to agewise, we have to take his 175 pound campaign in context. Not including his debut at 177 which he lost, and his ko by Joe Smith because he was shot, his record at 175 is 9 wins 3 losses 2 draws/no contest and 0 knockouts. That's a mediocre record. You mentioned the Winky fight, but that catch-weight was 170, a weight that Winky, whose best career weight was 154, had never fought at before and after. No one can ever claim Winky was a world class lightheavyweight. The Pavlik fight conditions were similar: a 170 pound catchweight which suited Hopkins far more than Pavlik. And Kelly actually dropped back down to middleweight afterwards. As far as the Calzaghe fight was concerned, JC wasn't prime himself and I personally had Calzaghe winning by 2-3 points. No question Hopkins is a physical marvel but you put him in the Spinks, Saad, Qawi era and he suffers more than one or two ugly defeats.
There is no doubt that Mackie prolonged his career big time.. Yes Hop was dedicated. But to have Mackie and his genius ability just made Hop so much better
I don't get how people bring up just the Duran and Hearns fights as the primary wins for Marvin … People got to get past just these names.. It was his complete body of work and how he went about cleaning up the division twice which makes him so great .. He was so much more than beating Duran, a SBW, who was past it and Hearns who wasn't even a great middle, his worst weight. You want to know about Marvin, then look at his 10 in a row win list with the names on it and show me a 10 name list better….. That's Marvin Hagler
people seem to forget the buildup for the Hearns fight. both fighters were such high caliber, that people had problems picking a winner
And tbf, legitimately so. If Hagler's chin had been a fraction less rocklike, that tremendous hook that Hearns landed on him would have floored him. It would have outright KO'd most of the MW's around imo. Instead, he destroyed his hand. Legendary fight.
