A sure-fire way to start a major argument among fight fans is to ask this question: ?Who do you think really won the fight between Sugar Ray Leonard and Marvelous Marvin Hagler??
That WBC middleweight championship bout took place on April 6, 1987. On the official scorecards, Leonard won a split 12-round decision, and took away the title Hagler had held for seven years. Unofficially, the opinions of fistic fandom were divided right down the middle. One side believed that Leonard had outboxed Hagler and therefore deserved the decision. The other side insisted that Hagler had been the effective aggressor, and was stiffed by judges who failed to give him enough credit for his effort.
Twenty-five years after the fight, with both participants retired and enshrined in boxing?s Hall of Fame, Leonard?s victory remains contentious. Even people who were children ? or not yet born ? when the fight occurred have strong opinions about it, having watched the video of it again and again. But to register the full impact of the fight and the controversy surrounding its outcome, you had to be there ? either at ringside, or crammed into a location showing the fight on closed-circuit TV.
I wasn?t fortunate enough to have seen Hagler-Leonard ringside at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. But I did catch it live on closed-circuit at the Halifax Forum in Nova Scotia. The bout was one of the most highly-anticipated of the 1980s, even though the conventional wisdom (with which I fully agreed) held that Leonard was in way over his head. The 30-year-old former welterweight and junior-middleweight champion had fought only once in the past five years. His last fight, a victory over Kevin Howard, was three years in the past. And Howard had spilled Sugar on the canvas before being stopped himself.
Hagler was two years older than Leonard, and had much more ring mileage. He looked as though he was slipping in his last bout, in which he found himself hard-pressed to put away the powerful-but-crude John ?The Beast? Mugabi. But even a slightly less-than-prime version of Hagler figured to have enough left to knock the hubris out of Ray Leonard.
As the bell clanged for the first round, Leonard was all flash and fancy, dancing around the ring and throwing quick combinations. Hagler, with his glistening shaven head and menacing scowl, pursued his foe, ready to live up to his motto of ?Destruct and Destroy.?
Over the first four rounds, Leonard pretty well did what he wanted ? even throwing the kind of fake bolo punch that had demoralized Roberto Duran in their ?No Mas? fight in 1980. It would have been difficult to score even one of those first four stanzas for Hagler. Still, Hagler had eight rounds left to walk Ray down and knock him out.
As the middle rounds unfolded, more of Hagler?s blows were reaching Leonard. It was as though Marvin was saying to himself: ?Playtime?s over, Ray. Now we?re gonna get down to work!?
Funny thing, though. Every time it looked as though Hagler was about to take over the fight, Leonard would erupt into one of his patented, eye-catching flurries. The punches neither floored nor even wobbled Hagler. But they were enough to repeatedly blunt Marvin?s momentum. And Leonard always made certain to get the last punch in before the bell ended a round.
Hagler performed a lot better in the late rounds than he had in the first four. But Leonard refused to go down, and he kept throwing those pesky bunches of punches that bugged Hagler like a swarm of mosquitoes. Hagler threw bombs, but he could not land the one that would obliterate his stubborn opponent. After the bell ending the twelfth and last round sounded, Hagler strutted around the ring as though he was certain he had won. Leonard looked happy, but tired. We at the Halifax Forum were on the edge of our seats, as the decision was bound to be a close one, and the fight had turned out to be far more competitive than anyone (other than Leonard) could have imagined.
The scorecards were announced:
?Judge Lou Filippo: 115-113 for Hagler!?
Cheers from the crowd.
?Judge Dave Moretti: 115-113 for Leonard!?
More cheers from the crowd. This was going to be either a split decision or a draw.
?Judge Jose Juan Guerra: 118-110 for ? Leonard!?
Gasps. Cheers. Boos. Cries of ?What the ? !?
The arguments started then, and they continue to this day. Even those who thought Leonard won were baffled by Guerra?s one-sided scoring. Had Guerra made his margin two points, as did his fellow judges, the decision would still have been debatable, but not to the extent that it was then and remains to this day.
My take on the outcome is the same now as it was twenty-five years ago: Leonard won it. In frittering away the first four rounds, Hagler created a deep hole for himself. To pull out a decision, Marvin needed to take seven of the next eight rounds. Or win six, with one to Leonard and the other even. Or score a knockdown. Or score a 10-8 round without putting Leonard on the canvas.
Or knock Leonard the hell out and render all those calculations irrelevant.
Hagler tried his best, but he did none of the things that he had to do in order to erase Leonard?s early advantage. So, Hagler lost the fight ? which turned out to be the last of his career.
Will boxing fans still be looking back at Hagler-Leonard on its 50th anniversary? Of course they will. Will they still be arguing about it? No question.
Charles R. Saunders is the author of several books including Sweat and Soul: The Saga of Black Boxers in the Maritimes from the Halifax Forum to Caesars Palace, as well as the Imaro series of fantasy/adventure novels. Considered by many to be one of the leading authorities on boxing in Canada, he is the current Vice-President of Boxing for the Society of North American Sports Historians and Researchers. His novel, Damballa, which centers around a fictional heavyweight title bout, is available at www.gopulp.info.
