Quote:
Originally Posted by GBP04
oy i can see that being brutal
why was he your favorite athelete?
Boxing was my favorite sport. I was a scrawny dork, Hagler was the opposite of that. In addition to being scary & mesmerizing in the ring he was very cool, calm & charismatic out of it.
He'd been the #1 contender for two years before he got robbed by the draw against Antuofermo, then had to wait another year for the Minter fight and his moment of triumph was ruined by the riot. A case can be made that he should've fought Valdes for Monzon's vacant title instead of Bennie Briscoe. Valdes & Monzon certainly wanted no part of him at that point in their careers.
The Antuofermo fight was his first real national exposure, but I'd been reading about him for years, so I felt I 'discovered' him. And then it was seven glorious years as the undisputed pound for pound champ. Lord, the Hearns & Mugabi fights were something to watch live.
Yeah, the Leonard fight was brutal, but Hagler & the Petronellis have no one to blame but themselves. More than anyone in boxing history they KNEW they couldn't trust the judges.
Leonard was the GOAT at psychological warfare, read Marvin perfectly. He demanded more money and that his name be first on the posters (originally none of the alphabet boys were going to sanction it; eventually Sulaiman went to Arum on his knees). Hagler went ballistic and traded the ring size, gloves and 12 rounds for the dough. Leonard fought a brilliant fight but he couldn't have gone 15.
Hagler not fighting southpaw was moronic. Leonard had struggled with the outclassed southpaws Larry Bonds & Ayub Kalule, which was why I thought Hagler would wipe him out...
And now I'm def past tl;dr