History Lesson: Marvelous and The Beast

By Dave "Large" Larzelere

One of the greatest middleweight title fights of all time was held twenty-two years ago today, and though you probably won’t hear it mentioned with the Graziano/Zale’s or Robinson/LaMotta VI, it’s certainly worthy of such rarified company.

I’m talking about Marvelous Marvin Hagler’s fight with John “The Beast” Mugabi, the next to last fight of Hagler’s career and a bout that he won but indirectly led to his loss of the middleweight title the very next year.

Marvin was 31-years-old at the time and starting to slow down after six years as middleweight king. His straight ahead style was starting to take its toll, head-hunting rumbles with hard-hitters like Wilford Scypion, Roberto Duran and of course the three-round classic with Tommy Hearns.

Nevertheless, Marvin had long coveted a fight with Ray Leonard, a fight that Sugar Ray had almost cruelly denied him after his first retirement in 1982. But sitting ringside and watching Hagler slug it out with Mugabi four years later, Leonard saw something in Marvin, saw that he’d lost a step and lost some of his power, and felt confident that he could come back and beat the Marvelous One. He made a decision then and there to challenge Hagler. This became one of the biggest fights in history – if you don’t know how it turned out, well, you might want to look into it, because it’s definitely an event worth wrapping your mind around.

As for Hagler/Mugabi, I’ve attached a highlight video below. It’s kind of mind-blowing in and of itself. I must say, it’s hard for me to imagine in any way that watching this fight would make you want to step into the ring with Marvin Hagler, but obviously Ray Leonard knew exactly what he was doing.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.