Rewatched Hagler/Leonard

crodor3

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I will preface this by saying Marvelous Marvin was and still is my all time favorite boxer and imo the greatest mw of all time. I grew up not far from Brockton, Mass so naturally Marvin was one of my first introductions into boxing. I was so pissed back then at age 13 that I declared it a complete robbery and vowed never to watch it again. I never liked the "you have to BEAT the champ to win the title" nonsense (and still think it is foolish) but in my 13 year old mind Leonard absolutely did NOT beat Marvin.

After watching last night I am not so sure. I gave I think the first 3 or 4 rounds to Ray. He put on an absolute clinic for much early rounds, and continued this off and on late. Marvin was the aggressor and clearly the harder puncher -and seemed to land to the body over and over (whereas Ray would look flashy and the crowd would often react to anything he did, when Marvin landed well it seemed to be ignored.) Overall I believe the scoring would come down to HOW you saw the fight--ie Ray's quickness and speed as opposed to Marvin coming forward the ENTIRE fight (albeit not cutting off the ring effectively and being out boxed for large stretches) and landing thudding blows to the body for much of the middle to later rounds...

... I ended up scoring the bought a draw with Ray winning 6 rounds and Marvin winning 6, but it was so close I can almost understand the 118-110 scorecard for Ray (but disagree with that score obviously) So how in retrospect do you see this decision? Fair or robbery?
 
115/113 Leonard. Maybe 116/112.
I really didn't think that fight was all that controversial. Hagler gave away too many early rounds and Ray did a great job stealing a lot of close rounds.
We just had a thread on this fight a week or so ago, lots of opinions in that.
 
last time i watched it like 5 years ago i had it hagler 7-5 but almost every round can go either way. history would be so much different if they called this a draw.
 
Hagler is also my all time favourite fighter. I haven't watched this fight for years as I don't care to remember it. But on a recent watch I had it 116-112 to Leonard so it's not really a close fight in my eyes. Leonard outboxed Hagler and made him look cumbersome imho. I just wish Hagler had started off southpaw.
 
There were more controversial fights in the lower weight classes in the 1990s, Taylor-Chavez or Whitaker-Chavez for instance.
But none of them had that dramatic touch like Leonard-Hagler, because none of those boxers were stars... Not even Roy Jones Jr... They were stars inside the boxing circle, but not outside of it.
 
Did Hagler ever admit that he foolishly wanted to outbox SRL, like SRL foolishly wanted to outbrawl Duran in their first fight?
 
Did Hagler ever admit that he foolishly wanted to outbox SRL, like SRL foolishly wanted to outbrawl Duran in their first fight?
i think hagler always maintained that he won that fight and that he'd fuck him up in the rematch.

which is entirely possible, on both accounts.
 
I will preface this by saying Marvelous Marvin was and still is my all time favorite boxer and imo the greatest mw of all time. I grew up not far from Brockton, Mass so naturally Marvin was one of my first introductions into boxing. I was so pissed back then at age 13 that I declared it a complete robbery and vowed never to watch it again. I never liked the "you have to BEAT the champ to win the title" nonsense (and still think it is foolish) but in my 13 year old mind Leonard absolutely did NOT beat Marvin.

After watching last night I am not so sure. I gave I think the first 3 or 4 rounds to Ray. He put on an absolute clinic for much early rounds, and continued this off and on late. Marvin was the aggressor and clearly the harder puncher -and seemed to land to the body over and over (whereas Ray would look flashy and the crowd would often react to anything he did, when Marvin landed well it seemed to be ignored.) Overall I believe the scoring would come down to HOW you saw the fight--ie Ray's quickness and speed as opposed to Marvin coming forward the ENTIRE fight (albeit not cutting off the ring effectively and being out boxed for large stretches) and landing thudding blows to the body for much of the middle to later rounds...

... I ended up scoring the bought a draw with Ray winning 6 rounds and Marvin winning 6, but it was so close I can almost understand the 118-110 scorecard for Ray (but disagree with that score obviously) So how in retrospect do you see this decision? Fair or robbery?

Don't feel like going down this rabbit hole again, but i had it similar. Felt that Hagler won the fight 7 rounds to 5 -- or so -- but could understand a draw. don't see how Ray could've won the fight, as he never tried to take the fight from the champ, the guy with the strap. Not a robbery, but not fair.
 
last time i watched it like 5 years ago i had it hagler 7-5 but almost every round can go either way. history would be so much different if they called this a draw.
Just imagine if GGG had gotten the nod over Canelo.
 
115-113 either way is fine.
 
According to SRL autobiography (which I highly recommend) Hagler never wanted a rematch. Ray was up for it though and they tried to make it happen . Also said he tried to be friendly with Hagler afterwards but Hagler didn't want to know. Big fan of both by the way.
 
Oh and I think Ray just did enough to win but a draw would have been understandable.
 
Bias aside (not really)
Hagler 7/5
 
According to SRL autobiography (which I highly recommend) Hagler never wanted a rematch. Ray was up for it though and they tried to make it happen . Also said he tried to be friendly with Hagler afterwards but Hagler didn't want to know. Big fan of both by the way.

That is consistent with what Arum had to say in a recent podcast and he was Hagler camp, not Leonard.

Arum : "Ray said to me, Bob, go over and tell Marvin there's a lot of money to be made in a rematch" and Arum says regardless of how hard people tried to get make the rematch happen, Hagler was not interested.
 
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