Brockton Boxing Legend And Longtime Middleweight Champ "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler Dies At 66
Bettmann. Getty Images.New England and the boxing world were crushed out of the blue on Saturday evening when word broke that former middleweight champion "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler, one of the greatest boxers ever, passed away unexpectedly at his New Hampshire home. The Champ was just 66.
Growing up in the Boston area in the 1980s, there may have only been two league titles but there were many legit sports icons we watched build their Hall of Fame-level résumés. Larry Bird. Andre Tippett. Ray Bourque. Kevin McHale. Jim Rice. Roger Clemens. Robert Parish. Stanley Morgan (yes, Stanley Morgan). Cam Neely.
But there was only one icon who held one individual title for nearly seven straight years and defended it successfully a dozen times before losing it via a controversial split decision in a call that still gets debated today. That title was the Undisputed World Middleweight Champion and Hagler was perhaps the best to ever hold it. I'm familiar with Sugar Ray Robinson's accomplishments. I can't speak to the careers of Harry Greb or Carlos Monzon or others from before my time. But I can say unequivocally that "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler was the greatest middleweight of my lifetime.
Boxing fans were blessed with the epic heavyweight wars of the 1970s. It seemed every few months Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Ken Norton, Joe Frazier, or Larry Holmes were fighting. But the '80s belonged to the greatest collection of guys fighting as middleweights (as well as other categories) the sport had ever seen. In addition to Hagler, we had Sugar Ray Leonard, Thomas Hearns, and Roberto Duran. If you pair off any two, there's a history there.
Hagler was part of a pair of the biggest moments in televised boxing history. First, there was his much-anticipated battle with Thomas "Hit Man" Hearns that gifted us with one of the most incredible rounds in the history of the sport…
Then, just shy of 33, fans finally got the match they had been clamoring for for years: Hagler vs. Leonard for all the marbles.
Leonard won by split decision in what has become a Rorschach Test of a fight over the years. Hagler wanted a rematch but Leonard stalled. When Sugar Ray finally agreed to one, Hagler was knee-deep into retirement and wasn't coming out. The champ out of Brockton, MA was smart enough to make his money ($19M for just the Leonard fight) and run far from the corrupt sport in which he toiled.
Off into the proverbial sunset he would go with a 62-3-2 record. Of those 62 wins, 52 were KOs. The steel-jawed Hagler was never knocked out and, in fact, was only knocked down once and even that was disputed. 11 of those 12 title defenses were KOs. Hagler tried out acting for a bit then lived out a quiet, low-key life as one of the best ever. He died as a boxing icon and a beloved son of the City of Champions.
Rest well, Champ. We love ya.
Simon Hofmann. Getty Images.