Like many of us, if not all of us, middleweight legend Marvelous Marvin Hagler yearns for the old days of boxing; when there was just one world champion, far less weight divisions and fifteen-round fights. Those great days are of course not coming back but it doesn’t stop an all-time great like Hagler from criticising the current state of boxing. Speaking out in Monaco with AFP, Hagler said that these days the average boxing fan doesn’t know who the word champion is.
Hagler, who has praise for Gennady Golovkin, also stated that as there are so many world titles us for grabs these days, fighters “throw them away like candy.”
“Now they have so much they throw them [world titles] away like candy,” the Marvelous one said. “It was a long hard road in my day. I said you haver to kill me to take it [my world title]. I saw Triple-G and I told him I am glad that you became champion because it brings back respect into my division, you look like a champion who will be there for a while. Most champions these days, they come and they go, they confuse the public, who do not know who the real champion is. Right now they think Mike Tyson is the champ (laughs).”
It’s tough to argue with Hagler of course. These days it is a rarity seeing a true, universally accepted undisputed world champion at any weight and it’s also true that if you ask any fighter or fan who goes back to the glory days of the 1970s and ’80s, they tell you how the sport has suffered as a whole due to the proliferation of belts. As for Golovkin, Hagler is right to praise GGG but as we know Golovkin is no longer world champion. In the eyes of many, perhaps Hagler included, GGG is still the best middleweight out there, but he no longer holds the belts.
In terms of a dream fight many fans often speak of, Hagler/Golovkin is absolutely fascinating. GGG is old-school and he might well have done well in the days of fifteen-round battles. Hagler by decision? It would have been a great fight, that’s for sure. Today, though, 64 year old Hagler is looking to make more action movies.
“Hopefully for me to land another film,” Hagler said of his future plans. “I love to do that, that’s what I’ve been doing, action and adventure.”
Hagler of course ruled the middleweight division from 1980 to 1987, ducking nobody. Who can claim such dominance in any weight division today?
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