Quote Originally Posted by TIC View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Spicoli View Post
avoiding bigger challenges while at the same time identifying he completely cleaned out his division

then remained active facing back to back to back #1 ranked challengers, set division records

and only then fought 3 legends.

"Hagler didn't take bigger challenges" and Duran, Hearns and Leonard were "smaller".

Even though every single one of them would go on to win championships at middle or Spr middle or Lt heavy. Just seems to make the smaller talk a nonstarter.

I'll stick to my take in that zero pass for Hagler is needed simply because he didn't jump what is two divisions today

for a fight no one was talking about.

Hagler could have simply sought out lesser

On a side I'm just going to spend spare time trying to think of legends who stayed at their natural weight range on the very top/championship scene for the duration of careers. It's actually quite the distinction.
he had basically cleaned out middleweight with the vito rematch, marvin chose to remain at middleweight to get his number of defenses up & await the big purses that came with the names below him

those back to back number one challenges who for defense numbers & purses, nothing wrong with that. moving up would have been a bigger challenge

three legends, yes, but none of them had done anything substantial at middle. two sanctioning bodies didn't want the ray fight to happen

making a run at light heavy would have been a bigger challenge than fighting roberto, tommy & ray

didn't every single one of them not start at lower divisions than marvin? just because the went up higher doesn't mean they didn't start out at lower weights. just seems to make the marvin was a small middleweight talk a nonstarter

that's fine for you to stick to your zero pass needed, i disagree. it's not that he simply didn't move up, that is part of it. he chose to stick around at middleweight & avoided herol & mike for the ray fight, then sat on the sidelines waiting on a rematch

i still find it strange that no one was talking about a potential michael spinks v marvin fight

marvin did stick around making defenses & collecting purses, instead of looking for bigger challenges

when you look at those legends who stayed at their natural weight or the duration of careers, take note of the last five to six years of their careers. it would be interesting to see what type of opposition they fought. might make for a another thread about what fighters finished their careers strongest
Neither had McCallum, far from it at the time. But in this instance now it's ok if Hagler faced a "smaller" fighter right? One far less established, widely known, battle tested, or career accomplished overall compared to Duran, Hearns and Leonard. And Hearns was actually top ranked at 160 when he faced Marvin and I'll never be convinced Mike was a bigger threat to Hagler than Tommy.