BoxRec

We've all had an argument with someone over the verdict of this fight. Who do you think won? Please don't use the argument "you have to clearly beat the champion to take the title" because it has no bearing on how judges score fights, nor should it.

Sugar Ray Leonard or Marvin Hagler? And why?

I'm a hagler fan but I watched it again about a year ago and had Leonard winning , I think hagler threw the early rounds by fight orthodox and then when he had some momentum going he backed off around the 10th or 11th which cost him the fight .I do think that hagler had slipped a lot by the time they fought but so had Leonard ....

Leonard

115-114 Leonard if I remember correctly which I probably don't.

I liked both fighters and at the time I mistakenly thought Leonard won going away.

This was due to the fact I was rooting for the upset, had more than a few beers, and was listening to the pro-Leonard announcing.

Judging the fight years later in a sober silence with (sound off) I had 115-114 Leonard like I said. All the rounds were close, so none of the 3 scorecards were awful in my opinion.

Boxing won.

It's a great question but the problem with boxing fans is that most get too emotional about these kind of things and do not go on logic, they simply go with the guy the like the most.

I liked both fighters and the truth being told I liked SRL a lot more than MH but in all honesty I must say that Hagler won it and all Ray did was con the audience with his showboating into believing he won that bout.

There was a reason SRL didn't make that fight a 15 rounder, he knows that MH would've destroyed him; all one has to do is to look at the last 3 rounds and you'll see the shoe shinning punches SRL was throwing and how MH simply walked him down and was bombing on him with right hands and hooks.

Leonard was smart though because he knew he was the fan favorite and he knew how to play to the crowd, Hagler was in attack mode the entire bout and landed the harder more significant blows throughout the fight.

I haven't watched it in awhile, but I remember upon first viewing it I had Sugar Ray on top, but in future viewings I had Marvin winning. I think that whole steal the round thing was pretty much invented in this fight & I think thats what ultimately stole the verdict. If you judge the fight on the three minutes rounds & don't give extra points for the last 30 seconds or whatever (as people & more importantly judges are apt to do) I think Marvin wins.

ReggieDiggs wrote:I haven't watched it in awhile, but I remember upon first viewing it I had Sugar Ray on top, but in future viewings I had Marvin winning. I think that whole steal the round thing was pretty much invented in this fight & I think thats what ultimately stole the verdict. If you judge the fight on the three minutes rounds & don't give extra points for the last 30 seconds or whatever (as people & more importantly judges are apt to do) I think Marvin wins.

It was one of the few fights that I bet some money on, and I won it taking Leonard. Even though I won the bet, I thought Hagler deserved the win in a close fight. One judge had it something like 118-110, which was a score equivalent of the loony judge that scored Floyd vs Canelo as a draw.

Leonard was a master of stealing rounds like Reggie said. He could have fought Hagler a few years earlier, but knew he had a better chance at the time the fight finally happened. Hagler was so pissed off he said he would retire, and he did.

I think Hagler should have gotten the decision but it was a close fight. It was a shame that Hagler had regressed so much by the time this fight was made. Had Leonard fought him 2 years before, after Hagler's win over Hearns, I think Hagler would have stopped him.

Though I wanted Marvin to win very much I think Leonard nicked it by a couple of rounds; it is frustrating as Hagler seemed to give early rounds away, maybe he imagined it was a 15 rounder and he'd go on the rampage late?

Baby Face Finster wrote:I think Hagler should have gotten the decision but it was a close fight. It was a shame that Hagler had regressed so much by the time this fight was made. Had Leonard fought him 2 years before, after Hagler's win over Hearns, I think Hagler would have stopped him.

I agree with your assessment 100% . If they fought two years earlier I don't know if Hagler would have stopped Leonard him but would have won more convincingly than he did in this fight. Leonard waited until he saw Hagler was fading which was evident slightly in the way Hagler was throwing his punches in the Mugabi fight.
The fight was a long time ago I just remeber I thought Hagler won and that Leonard had so much charisma that it seemed they would give him rounds for just not being knocked out. Also the scoring for the fight was
Dave Moretti 115-113 Leonard
Lou Filippo 115-113 Hagler
Jose Juan Guerra 118-110 Leonard
I always thought the something was seriously wrong with the Jose Juan Guerra card for him to score the fight like this.

Hagler had regressed so much he was still the undisputed champ and reigning #1 p4p in the sport.
Widely regarded as THE best boxer in the world coming into the fight but there are always people trying to act like Leonard had cherry-picked a completely shot fighter

The decision in the fight was correct.
Leonard won OR Hagler lost however you choose to look at it.

I don't think Marvin considered SRL to be a real threat, he conceded everything Leonard wanted at the bargaining table and possibly didn't bother training hard for the fight.
Then he got in the ring and literally gave away the early rounds following SRL around, talking to him, calling him names and letting SRL control everything.
When he did decide to take the fight seriously he had already allowed himself to fall way behind on the scorecards and was unable to make up for the slow start.

Hagler, close.

I watched it live and had Hagler winning a very close fight.

I watched it years later again and saw nothing that made me change my mind.

Leonard, if I recall, did a lot of showboating in the last 30 to 60 seconds in the rounds, hoping that it would catch the judges eyes and overide the rest (majority) of the round earlier.

The one judges scorecard, so massively lopsided in Leonards favour, should have been investigated thoroughly after the fight.

Baby Face Finster wrote:I think Hagler should have gotten the decision but it was a close fight. It was a shame that Hagler had regressed so much by the time this fight was made. Had Leonard fought him 2 years before, after Hagler's win over Hearns, I think Hagler would have stopped him.

Maybe, but who would have won in 1982 when both were pretty much at their peak? That's about the time when the fight was first seriously discussed. At his retirement" announcement near the end of that year, Leonard famously said about a potential bout, "It'll never happen."

I loved Hagler but when watching them fight in 1987, I got the impression that Leonard's foot speed would have kept Hagler off balance and lunging in 1982.
His movement was a tad slower in 1987 but Hagler still had a difficult time cornering him until the rusty Leonard tired and needed to rest on the ropes.

Leonard wasn't as sharp as he would have been in 1982/1983 so Hagler's physical regression by 1987 made it a wash.
I gave the bout to Leonard by a very narrow margin. A Hagler verdict would have been okay. But I think MMH was very lucky he didn't encounter Leonard earlier in the decade when Leonard's speed and precision would have been at its zenith.

I remember it being Leonard winning by 8-4. I thought Leonard outboxed Hagler overall. I do agree that Leonard stole a couple of rounds. I remember Leonard's footwork neutralizing Hagler. Hagler couldn't catch Leonard for the most part of the fight.

115-113 Hagler.

I have watched the fight around 5 times and I either have Hagler winning by 2 points or a draw. I never have Leonard winning the fight.

Ettt9350 wrote:115-113 Hagler.

I have watched the fight around 5 times and I either have Hagler winning by 2 points or a draw. I never have Leonard winning the fight.

as above

Draw or Leonard by 1 rd. I'd have to see final punch breakdown based on today's technology. Compubox wasn't around in 87 right?

Had a rematch occurred Leonard doesn't make the final bell. I love Hagler but his style reminds of El Perro Anguelo

Originally I had Leonard quite wide, the on the advise of a poster on here(can't remember who it was) watched the fight on mute, I still had Leonard winning, but by much close margin 115-113 sugar ray

ReggieDiggs wrote:I haven't watched it in awhile, but I remember upon first viewing it I had Sugar Ray on top, but in future viewings I had Marvin winning. I think that whole steal the round thing was pretty much invented in this fight & I think thats what ultimately stole the verdict. If you judge the fight on the three minutes rounds & don't give extra points for the last 30 seconds or whatever (as people & more importantly judges are apt to do) I think Marvin wins.

This comment is right on. No one was buying rounds in the last 10 seconds like that before this fight and boxers still do it today. The fact that this tactic still wins rounds to this day shows another of many flaws with the boxing scoring system. SRL was my favorite boxer ever so i can't give you an unbiased opinion on the fight but what i can say is that MH didn't do enough. I can't remember him landing too many effective punches. Maybe one here and there but he was just lulled to sleep.

I had Hagler by 2 rounds at the time and remember the whole SRL round stealing scenario. During the fight I seem to remember that this was commented on so it's shame the judges did not pick up on it. Even an average fan or the odd celebrity fan could easily see what Ray was doing and was not fooled by it.

I agree that Marvin was not the same fighter at this point and always wondered whether he would have retired even if he had won. In some ways it was better to lose a hotly disputed fight as this one. He may well have go on to lose to someone that he would have destroyed years earlier and that would have been a sad exit. He may have even lost a rematch to Tommy.

hagler didn't deserve the win, a draw at best. his corner
made three fatal decisions:

1. start orthodox
2. not change to southpaw after 2 minutes, when it was
clear that orthodox didn't give marvin any advantage.
3. not being fully aware that ray would get the nod if the
fight was as close as it was. or they thought that marvin's
walking towards ray was enough to be regarded as
aggression.

i think leonard was fighting exactly the fight he wanted
to fight, while marvin was never able to do his thing. truly
amazing was that, despite the layoff, sugar had the stamina
and the concentration to do 12 rounds of boxing. to me a
close and split decision reflects what happened in that fight.

there are two fighters who i like a lot, but who annoyed
me with what they did outside the ring. marvin hagler
and larry holmes. larry couldn't get over that people did
not love him as much as ali and marvin was so disgusted
by not getting the leonard-nod that he hung them up for
good at age 33. both: crybabies.

the only real move of marvin would have been to take
the loss - whatever he might have thought about it - like
a man and press for a rematch. actually i would assume
he had a rematch-clause. if not - another mistake.

all in all marvin has no one else to blame but himself and
his whole team. the alleged conspiracy against himself
did not take place that night. he turned his back on boxing
for no reason.

One judge had it something like 118-110, which was a score equivalent of the loony judge that scored Floyd vs Canelo as a draw.>>>Badhusker

I can't agree with that. All the Leonard-Hagler rounds were close. They really were. Virtually none of the Mayweather-Canelo rounds were close.