Marvin Hagler vs Thomas Hearns "The War"
Fight Fact
Date: 15th-April-1985
Venue: Caesars Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada
Title: World Middleweight
Result: Marvin Hagler wins via stoppage round 3.
When a great fighter produces his peak performance those lucky enough to have been in attendance are fortunate, but when two great fighters peak against each another something magical happens and their fight lives on in the memory, growing to epic proportions with each re telling. When middleweight champion Marvin Hagler, Newark, New Jersey went up against his most dangerous opponent to date Thomas Hearns, Memphis, Tennessee. It was a match made in heaven, pitting the cold professionalism of Hagler, against the explosive punching power of the former WBA Welterweight and WBC Light middleweight Champion Thomas Hearns.
This would be Haglers 11th defence of his Championship, virtually all defences came against top flight opponents and Hagler looked dominant in the division. Roberto Duran “Hands of Stone” was the only man to take him the championship distance (at the time 15 Rounds). Duran was a common opponent of both men. In 1984 Duran won the WBA Light middleweight title but relinquished it to challenge Hearns for his WBC version; Duran was flattened by the Hitman in two rounds, on this form many thought Hearns had a real chance of upsetting the shaven headed Hagler.
Hearns had lost just once in 41 bouts, his loss came four years earlier in a Welterweight unification fight against Sugar Ray Leonard, and only six of his fights had gone the distance giving homage to his Hitman tag. Haglers record was equally impressive, 64 fights with two draws and two defeats, all four men who blemished his record had been beaten inside the distance in their rematch.
Such was the demand for tickets to witness the long awaited bout Caesars had set up an outdoor arena in the car park. From the opening bell there was no cautious approach, no feeling out period or jabbing for distance. Instead both men tore from their corners like greyhounds released from their traps smashing hooks at each other with murderous intent, every punch was threw to produce a knockout; and against other opponents they may well have succeeded. You could have been forgiven for thinking one of these guys was having an affair with the others wife, that’s how personal in looked between those ropes. It was surely only the adrenaline of the moment that kept both men upright as they rocked each other with explosive punches. Hagler pinned the Challenger to the ropes where they traded blows for 30 seconds, then with less than a minute to go in the first blood was clearly visible all over the Champions face. The cut was on the forehead above the bridge of the nose, Hagler seemed to sense the seriousness of the injury and knew he had to stop his aggressive challenger.
In the second round Hagler threw caution to the wind and pushed for the finish, as Hearns traded with the Champion another horrible cut appeared on Haglers face this time under his right eye, the muscular Hagler threw everything in a blistering sustained attack, but the tall spindly Hearns soaked it up countering back. Referee Richard Steele a former professional boxer himself stopped the action to enquire and asked Hagler. Can you see him? Haglers response was unforgettable “I’m hitting him aren’t I”. The fight would end abruptly in the third as Hagler proved his right to be ranked alongside the Middleweight greats Robinson, Greb and Monzon before him. With the referees intervention in the previous round Hagler knew it was now or never and continued to plough forward, landing a right hook flush on the challengers chin buckling his legs and sending him backwards almost turning full circle. The Champion left nothing to chance a literally ran after his wounded foe landing three clubbing rights sending the Hitman to the canvas where he lay spread eagle briefly before rising to beat the count, but with no defence Ref Steele had no choice but to throw his arms around the beaten Hearns to signal curtains to the end of an epic encounter.
It was obvious from the opening round this one wasn’t going the distance, it all happened so quick, so much had been packed into three brutal rounds. The fight had a clean sweep of theboxinghistorian year end awards, the bout won fight of the year, Round 1 won round of the year and Hagler went on to win Fighter of the year. Its nights such as these we reminisce other great Middleweight encounters like Rocky Graziano’s 6th round knockout of Tony Zale in 1947 at the Chicago stadium, and the infamous St Valentine’s day massacre in 1951 between Sugar Ray Robinson and Jake La Motta.
TBH
1985 Ring Magazine Fight of the Year.
1985 Ring Magazine Round of the Year (Round 1)
