Hagler v Leonard - Leonard win or Hagler lose???

1. Why the hell did Hagler fight orthodox and let Leonard get a foothold in the fight..

2. Why wasn't Hagler's team more firm in the negotiations..ie purse parity for 15 rounds??? Not that it probably makes any difference..

3. Where was the pressure??? The ability to jump on Leonard and cut the ring down a la Hearns...

4. Why did he disrespect a great in Leonard...Leonard wouldn't have come back if he didn't know he still had it...

Hagler lost this fight.......No disputed decision crud either..

I had it 116-112...

Hagler gave Leonard an easy night...as for Sugar well you never murder a guy who is committing suicide do you..

From signing the contract to the end of the fight..Hagler did everything wrong,wrong,wrong..

Isn't Leonard on record as saying he pretty much only came back because he thought Hagler was past his best? Credit to SRL for being savvy in negotiating the conditions he wanted, although it will always leave his critics questioning.

Never seen the fight in full but have seen the HBO show about it and read numerous articles but from what i've read and heard it appears Hagler really has himself to blame for the outcome in terms of fight tactics.

I think SRL is a slimy guy. He admits to using certain tactics to win fights which gain no credit to him but he's boastful about it!

He reminds me of a teacher's pet, getting other kids in trouble and smiling about it, the git!

A bit off subject but hey ho!

Hagler fought the wrong fight in the first 4 rounds. But I still had him winning 115-113 and I've seen that fight many times. SRL had fluries at the end of many rounds to catch the judges eyes. Hagler did more damage and threw more hurtful punches throughout.

The great one calls this the illusion of victory, and an interesting phenomen named the Schulberg factor was theorised. Leonard was the master at making the round uneventful and then unloading in flashy flurries at the end to appear to judges as if he's more in control than he was. To quote:

Hugh McIlvanney, April 20, 1987.

It is not only in Las Vegas that professional boxing's system of scoring shows all the intellectual consistency of a rolling pair of dice.

Don't blame the desert air for the rush of blood to the brain that caused Jose Juan (Jo Jo) Guerra, a WBC judge, to make Sugar Ray Leonard a winner by 10 rounds to 2 over Marvin Hagler while another official, Lou Filippo, was giving the April 6 fight at Caesars Palace to Hagler 7 rounds to 5. If the record of judges sanctioned by its State Athletic Commission is anything to go by, Nevada is a congenial environment for officials with the glorious eccentricity of mind brought to his work by Guerra. But bad decisions know no boundaries.

The simple truth is that at this stage of its long and erratic history, prizefighting is still nowhere near establishing any consistently accurate means of measuring performance. If the comparative effectiveness of two fighters is so difficult to calibrate (or so open to extravagantly subjective interpretations) that Guerra and Filippo can contradict each other as outrageously as they did, then even when everybody stays honest, boxing clearly carries a far higher risk of recurring injustice than any other sport.

When judges talk about focusing on paramount criteria—on identifying effective aggressiveness, clean punching, ring generalship and quality defense—they are merely emphasizing the complexity, perhaps the impossibility, of the exercise. Much of the time all they can do is review a fighter's performance, much as a theater critic would an actor's, making the pseudoscientific adjustment of putting their impressions into figures.

No one has ever understood the boxing judge as reviewer of theater better than Sugar Ray Leonard. Even Muhammad Ali, who substituted histrionics for real fighting often enough in the latter part of his career, was usually more concerned with disconcerting his opponent and getting the crowd on his side. Leonard sought those dividends too against Hagler. But the overriding priority for him appeared to be the manipulation of official minds.

Naturally, to achieve that end, Ray had to bring a lot to the party. Physically and mentally, he was astonishingly strong, sharp and resilient after what had been, essentially, a five-year layoff.

Thus, looking and moving so much better than anyone had a right to expect, Leonard was in a position to exploit the Schulberg Factor. This phenomenon—a compound optical illusion—may not have been discovered by Budd Schulberg, the novelist and fight aficionado, but he receives credit here for pointing it out to a few of us who were asking ourselves how Hagler came to be so cruelly misjudged. Budd's reasoning was that people were so amazed to find Sugar Ray capable of much more than they imagined that they persuaded themselves he was doing far more than he actually was.

Similarly, having expected extreme destructiveness from Marvin, they saw anything less as failure and refused to give him credit for the quiet beating he administered.

What Ray Leonard pulled off in his split decision over Hagler was an epic illusion. He had said beforehand that the way to beat Hagler was to give him a distorted picture. But this shrewdest of fighters knew it was even more important to distort the picture for the judges. His plan was to "steal" rounds with a few flashy and carefully timed flurries and to make the rest of each three-minute session as unproductive as possible for Hagler by circling briskly away from the latter's persistent pursuit. When he made his sporadic attacking flourishes, he was happy to exaggerate hand speed at the expense of power, and neither he nor two of the scorers seemed bothered by the fact that many of the punches landed on the champion's gloves and arms. This was showboating raised to an art form, and the brilliance with which it was sustained was a tribute to Leonard's wonderful nerve, which is cut from the same flawless diamond as Ali's.

But, however much the slick ploys blurred the perceptions of those on the fevered sidelines, they never broke Hagler. He has a different kind of spirit, but it is no less resolute than Leonard's. The hounding intensity that kept him unbeaten through 11 years from 1976 will soon be a memory, but he had enough left to press on through his early frustrations, throw the superior volume of hurtful punches. I'm convinced Hagler won the fight; a draw, and the retention of the title, was the very least he deserved.

"It's unfair, man, it's unfair," Hagler said helplessly to the master illusionist at the end. That's an old cry and—given the haphazard way boxing judges its heroes—all too often a true one.

What if the article was titled, "Leonard Gift/Hagler Robbed"?

Hagler's problem was that he didn't do anything...just stalked....

Sporadic was more than enough..

It was somewhat much more than stalking. He landed more hurtful blows, controlled the fight and all SRL did were those flurries which mainly hit arms and did no damage.

Hagler was robbed. From round 5 - 12 Hadler controlled the fight. He could have had him out in r9. R8 I gave to SRL and that was that.

When was Leonard hurt....The ninth???? Hagler had him on the ropes and then he blasted his way off....

Out-thought and outboxed.....and it was his own fault..

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:When was Leonard hurt....The ninth???? Hagler had him on the ropes and then he blasted his way off....

Out-thought and outboxed.....and it was his own fault..

Agreed.

Who threw the most leather? Leonard.

I am all in favour of coming-forward aggression - normally. But Leonard was the one throwing most of the shots. Sure - it was at the end of the round to "steal" each round. What's wrong with that? The fight is scored round-by-round not as a whole picture of what happened. Otherwise DeGale lost by a lot more to Groves than a 1point decision.

Hagler's tactics were wrong all the way through. He needed to bust Leonard up - but he never came close to doing that.

Nice article.

Oxring you're spot on buddy.....Hagler was ineffective end of.

I think Hugh has it spot on. Watching it live I thought leonard won by a few rounds, but watching the replays, especially with the sound turned down and I have Hagler the winner by two rounds. Still an exceptional performance by Leonard, and an average one by Haglar, but that shouldn't have affected the decision., BTW Truss, go watch Leonards blast in the 9th and count how many of those shots actually landed- for me the 9th sums up the fight nicely- Leonard looking spectacular, Hagler looking pedestrian- but landing the significant shots. Still a damn close fight , and I don't think it was a robbery

Remember when Hagler shot Alan Minter in a sarnie and munched him

Scott, I pasted the same McKilvanney article up once.It certainly implies that an injustice was done that night, but I'm not so sure. I agree with Truss on this one, Hagler ballsed up,(why did he go orthodox in the opening rounds?As if Leonard would ever get confused by that) the Legendary Nights documentary is very good on this one.A pundit goes;"Did Hagler do enough to win?Sure.Did Leonard outbox him?Well, yes.Nobody won, nobody lost." And I think it may be one of those whereby the scoring could never accurately reflect what happened.

To this day, I've never understood why claims of 'robbery' still circulate around this fight. Hagler didn't get going at all until the mid-way stage, and even then he had trouble imposing himself on Leonard. A fairly close fight, but Leonard won it in my eyes. Hagler just didn't do enough for me. Most people who argue the decision tend to argue it on the grounds that a champion "shouldn't lose their belt on a razor-thin decision" rather than arguing that Hagler actually won the fight itself, which says it all to me.

There's also a misconception that Leonard simply ran all night - again, not true. When Hagler's late charges eventually caught up with Sugar, he more than held his own and, in rounds nine and twelve in particular, he had Hagler backing up and conceding the centre of the ring.

Leonard 116-112 for me, 115-113 if I'm being kind to Hagler. While some might disagree, Hagler's actions immediately after the final bell told a story as far as I'm concerned, too. That daft celebration dance was so out of character for Hagler it was unreal. I think deep, deep down, Hagler knew he'd blown it.

I scored it like you Truss - 8-4 Leonard, although I would not object to a wider margin in Leonard's favour.

Leonard landed the harder more effective punches throughout. He made Hagler look pedestrian and I was astounded by how easily he neutralised Hagler, who seemed a superman to me at the time.

What amazed me was Hagler's lack of urgency and all those arm punches he threw. He had no snap at all - just pushing his punches whilst Leonard dissected him with his back to the ropes.

I thought Hagler lost not only his belts, but a fair few places on the all time middle list after that fight.

I thought Marvin won at the time but I was only about 13 at the time. Having revisited the fight several times over the years, I scored the fight to Sugar Ray.

Leonard is live on the Billy C Radio show next tuesday (10.30am), I know Billy thinks Hagler won the fight so will be interesting convo.

I was a big Hagler fan and there was no way he was going to get beaten by Leonard but at the end of the fight I knew that Hagler had blown it. Maybe his previous fight with Mugabi had taken more out of him than we relised.

When I watched this fight first time round I thought Leonard was a clear winner, but like many I was caught up in the razzmatazz of Ray's performance. Watched it several times since and still have Leonard winning every time but it is a close fight.

I think it was a mixture of Marvin's two previous fights taking a lot out of him and him underestimating Leonard. Marvin starts the fight in such a laid back manner, that I think he thought the first time he trapped Leonard, he would be able to stop him. A lot is made of Ray's flashy skills but what people like to forget he was also a hell of a fighter who could tough it out.

I am a big Sugar Ray fan but I know the Hagler who beat Hearns and Mugabi would have eventually got Ray and either stopped him late or win a clear decision. However, we all know the guy who turned up against Ray had left all he had in those previous fights.

You're wrong Hagler had nights where he didn't turn up...

If he'd lost the 15 th against Duran he loses the title..He struggled in Vito 1..

Think Leonard beat a still good Marvin...

Leonard was exceptional and bar hearns boxing him instead of brawling..was the best technician he faced..

You're underselling Leonard.

It was still a good Hagler, but not a great one, and that is what Hagler needed to be whenever he was going to fight Leonard.

For me, the fight was lost at the negotiating table as Ray dictated everything from number of rounds to ring size but this should not take away away from Ray's performance. Exceptional effort!

Leonard did get ahead at the negotiating table....but to say it was won there is a little over the top....He saw the Leonard that got decked off the journeyman Howard..figured he hadn't fought in three years and would be rusty...

Hagler underestimated him as you alluded to......

Hagler had slowed down some but Duran confused him and he'd had off nights before...

Should of rushed him like he did Hearns.