BoxRec

i saw the minter/hagler fight on youtube yesterday and later, in bed, read an account of the first tom cribb/tom molyneaux contest in the eighteenth century. you could substitute the names of the modern fighters for the historic ones and the situations were remarkably similar. i refer of course to the scenes in and out of the ring.
(i cant remember many commentators drawing parallels at the time)

Except that Hagler-Minter was a massacre and Cribb-Molyneux 1 was very close. Minter's never say die attitude in that fight really impressed me. He kept trying to fight back despite being completely shelled by the greatest MW ever.............top warrior performance from Al!

dr_devious wrote:Except that Hagler-Minter was a massacre and Cribb-Molyneux 1 was very close. Minter's never say die attitude in that fight really impressed me. He kept trying to fight back despite being completely shelled by the greatest MW ever.............top warrior performance from Al!

Atually I think Minter-Hagler was not the massacre it is portrayed. The cuts just made it look like a butchering. I thought Minter was actually giving Hagler a good fight.

i agree, minter was cut so badly so soon in the fight that it became a ridiculous test of will rather than the boxing lesson that he gave antuofermo. i doubt very much that he would have won the fight sans cuts
but he was certainly well in the fight until a very good uppercut nearly took his nose off shortly before the end. i think alan was an excellent boxer/puncher when his career finally clicked in and, far from a massacre the bout was competitive for the most part. so not too far from the cribb/molyneaux comparison! (i'm taking nothing from marvin for whom i have the highest regard)

Ok, maybe not the massacre that the cuts made it looked like but Minter was still getting out-gunned by Hagler. Molyneux on the other hand may well have won the first Cribb fight but for crowd interference

he did win the first fight with cribb and, if you remember, the crowd was so furious that they got to molyneaux and busted him up. perhaps you couldnt see too much from your seat but i was ringside and cribb definitely did not make the scratch. they were going nuts around me, the fancy.
i didnt want to see the rematch as i knew it was going to be a right old stitch up. poor old molyneaux was wining and dining the night before the fight and, so i'm told, was entertaining a host of the worst women you could ever want to meet. did you go?

dr_devious wrote:Except that Hagler-Minter was a massacre and Cribb-Molyneux 1 was very close. Minter's never say die attitude in that fight really impressed me. He kept trying to fight back despite being completely shelled by the greatest MW ever.............top warrior performance from Al!

i think he is referring to the bloodthirsty crowds of the respective bouts...where black american fighters were met with vengeful reactions from extremely hostile crowds!! in fact, by all accounts i have read, molyneaux was beating cribb convincingly in their first match until cribb's cornermen started their ruse that allowed cribb to recover, so NEITHER fight was very close!!

Didn't they rush the ring and break his hands and several ribs? I'm sure that's the fight where that happened. They gave him a right shoeing and then the fight continued.

i read that molyneaux gave cribb a working over and won the fight, the crowd then - just like minter/hagler - was so angry that they wanted to get some kind of revenge and managed to bust up the black victor.

did i get this wrong?

cribb won the return because just as in the turpin/robinson rematch the new champ was living the life of riley when he should have been training.

Molyneux didnt win the first fight; he was on top until the crowd interfered and when the fight re-started Cribb got his wind back and won. But for the crowd interference it was likely that Molyneux would have won.

harrygreb wrote:i agree, minter was cut so badly so soon in the fight that it became a ridiculous test of will rather than the boxing lesson that he gave antuofermo. i doubt very much that he would have won the fight sans cuts
but he was certainly well in the fight until a very good uppercut nearly took his nose off shortly before the end. i think alan was an excellent boxer/puncher when his career finally clicked in and, far from a massacre the bout was competitive for the most part. so not too far from the cribb/molyneaux comparison! (i'm taking nothing from marvin for whom i have the highest regard)

Yes trouble was Alan thought he was Superman going into the Hagler showdown: he'd handled mutual opponent Vito Antuofermo a lot better than Marvin, putting on a masterclass to beat Vito in the USA, then outclassing him in London.

And he seemed to catch Hagler and shake him for a micro second in the first round...which was just about the worst thing he could do.

i cant remember many commentators drawing parallels at the time)

I don’t think you can knock Harry Carpenter for not recalling this piece of boxing history as he continued his commentary with his seat cushion on his head, dodging the flying cans.

sorry about the wrong info about cribb/molyneaux 1, the book i was reading didnt make it too clear (ie i was drunk).

we have to remember that marvin hadnt shaken the world at the time of the fight, so alan had good reason to be confident although no reason at all to talk so much crap about what kind of guy wasnt going to take his title!
i like harry carpenter but to have kept his cool and given the audience a bit of history about cribb/molyneaux under a hail of bottles and debris would have been a golden sports moment to rival any

harrygreb wrote: i like harry carpenter but to have kept his cool and given the audience a bit of history about cribb/molyneaux under a hail of bottles and debris would have been a golden sports moment to rival any

Instead, he uttered the immortal words "Ouch!! I've been hit on the head by a bottle!!"