To me, Hagler is the greatest middleweight that ever lived.

He came up the hard way, never got any breaks on the way up (as Joe Frazier told him, "Son, you got three strikes against you.. you're a southpaw, you're black and you're good"). The ultimate blue collar professional in an era where the media first began to hype people up.

Hager came from a tough background and paid his dues in the notorious gym wars of Philadephia, he got in the ring with world class man like Bobby Watts etc while he was still learning his trade. He had a chin like iron and was only 'dropped' once in his entire career (a very debatable slip/knockdown against the brawling Mustapha Hamsho). That is some feat when you consider he fought everyone who mattered in the 80's - Duran, Hearns, Mugabi, Leonard etc.

The thing with Mrvin was that if you wanted to box, he could outbox you. If you wanted to brawl, he would outbrawl you. He could do everything and had every punch, plus was ALWAYS in weight, well conditioned and well prepared. As a mark of the man, did you know that he never had a contract with his managers or trainers, he shook hands with them when he was a teenager and stuck with them all the way through his career. Similarly, he never moved from middleweight (and i think many fighters move weight divisions because they lose discipline) and was one short of breaking Carlos Monzon's then record for title defences.

Ray Robinson won the middleweight title five times, but that meant he lost it four times.

Hagler was the ultimate technician, a proud and hard professional and (for me) one of the greatest fighters to ever grace that high-profile division.