I watched this fight again yesterday and although I may be in the minority here I scored it 117-115 for Leonard.
Hagler didn't land enough and looked relatively slow whilst Leonard looked as sharp as I'd ever seen him. Leonard has been criticised for employing flurries at the end of rounds to try to "nick" them but in truth he did more than that. Even so, in a couple of the rounds a few punches landed at the end of the round might well have been enough (and deservedly so) to win it.
Leonard won most of his rounds by clear margins whilst Hagler won his more narrowly so all in all I thought the two judges who scored it for Sugar Ray got it right.
Yes, I agree. I watched it recently, and with a less partisan perspective than when I first watched it (I was a massive SRL fan). Leonard fought brilliantly and proactively in the early rounds and hung on/ kept out of range just enough in the later rounds to nick it, IMHO. A fantastic fight, I remember watching it at the time at 16, with my face about 3 inches from the screen, screaming for Sugar Ray!
I scored the fight even and thought a draw would've been the best decision. Leanard certaintly didn't do enough to win the championship-you can't literallt run around the ring and then get your potshots in and keep running and expect to win a title. But he did b/c of his his popularity and the fact that everyone was expecting him to get killed. Sugar Ray fought a great fight but not enough for me to take the title away from Marvin.
One of the factors that is never mentioned is the number of times Ray got away with holding Hagler. Watch the fight again and the two phrases you hear the most are 1) Angelo Dundee's annoying "FLICK THE JAB RAY!, FLICK THE JAB!" and 2) Referee Richard Steele's: "NO HOLDING RAY! NO HOLDING!" (in every round at least 4-5 times, sometimes even more)
Steele should've warned Leonard, but he never did. Same thing with punching after the bell which he did at the end of 3 or 4 rounds.
That being said, I usually score the fight a draw, but 115-113 for leonard is not completely outlandish on my eyes. On the other hand 118-110 was just cretinous and inept.
