Hagler was brutal, brooding and a champion loved by fans
Legendary fighter, who has died at 66, was among greatest middleweights ever – and an opinionated man of principle
Marvelous Marvin Hagler, the former undisputed middleweight world champion, who died on Saturday at the age of 66, was a very special human being.
Brutal and brooding, he remains one of the most durable fighters to step into a ring. He tested himself in a dynamic era involving three other legends of the sport, all of whom he fought: Thomas Hearns, Roberto Duran and Sugar Ray Leonard. They were the “Four Kings”.
From the eight minutes of mayhem and violence in his defeat of Hearns, one of the greatest brawls of all time, to the victory over Duran, and the triumphs over Britain’s Alan Minter and Tony Sibson, Hagler has remained in the minds of many fans as one of the greatest and most adored of boxers.
Uncompromising, simplistic even, Hagler lost on points to Leonard, but always disputed the decision. As did many others.
Of all the great middleweights in history, Hagler sits alongside Sugar Ray Robinson, Carlos Monzon and Harry Greb as the top four in the division. Southpaw in stance, he was technically brilliant, heavyhanded, and arguably had one of the greatest chins seen.
Hagler was knocked down just once in 67 fights – and even that was disputed – during his 14-year professional career. He won 62 of his bouts, 52 by knockout, drew two and lost three. In his heyday, Hagler made 12 middleweight title defences and developed a huge fan base. In 1982, irked that television announcers were not referring to him by his ring sobriquet “Marvelous”, he changed his legal name to Marvelous Marvin Hagler.
Away from the ring, Hagler was endearing because of his honesty and simplicity. Bob Arum, the 89-year-old Las Vegas-based promoter who oversaw Hagler’s fights in his heyday, said he was meticulous with his money. “Hagler never spent five cents in a casino. All the time I knew him he never bought me a meal,” Arum said in a recent interview for The Daily Telegraph. “Every dollar he made he put in the bank and saved, so that when he retired he had all the money he would need for the rest of his life.”
For the fight with Leonard, Hagler earned $18 million. The 12-round championship bout pitched destructive Hagler, a bluecollar favourite, against pretty boy Leonard, a former Olympic champion, a media darling, who had been retired three years and was stepping up two modern weight divisions against the menacing figure almost a stone heavier.
Hagler, who had grown up tough on the streets of Newark as a kid until his family moved him to Brockton, Massachusetts, after the tenement where he lived had been burnt down in the 1967 riots, was a 7-1 favourite. It was misjudged a horrific mismatch, yet Leonard used his ring smarts, speed and footwork to keep Hagler at bay.
Irked at the result, and Leonard’s tactics, Hagler retired, saddled up and left for Italy, and a career in spaghetti westerns.
But the accolades were already there for Hagler: he was chosen as the Fighter of the Decade for the 1980s by Boxing Illustrated magazine; he won The Ring magazine Fighter of the Year award twice; and he was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1993.
Hagler had strong views on the sport, long after his retirement. In 2019, he had said that he wanted boxing to return to “one champion per division”, and said in 2013 that drugs cheats should be banned for life. “In my day it was all about what you did with your own capability, and not with some kind of enhancement,” he said.
“Boxing is a dangerous sport and should be made as safe as possible.”
In December 2007, in Casablanca, I joined Hagler and double Olympic champion Daley Thompson on a visit to a project run by Nawal El Moutawakel, the first Muslim, Arab, African woman to win a gold medal, at the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984.
We took part in the Courir pour La Vie project, a pilot scheme at Imam Mouslim High School, in Ben Abid, a dusty roadside village 20 miles outside Casablanca. The programme promoted sports among teenage girls living in rural locations, aiming to influence changes from the traditional pattern of leaving school in their mid-teens and later entering arranged marriages.
There was a match against the girls, who played fast, aggressive, basketball. Hagler and Thompson joined the players on court. It got rough. When Hagler took a break on the sidelines, he showed the scratches on his muscular forearms. “Look at my arms. Those girls mauled me like tigers out there. They are fantastic. So committed. No man ever did that to me,” he said grinning, his eyes wide and alive.