Hands of Stone - Christian Giudice [142]
Judge Yoshida had six rounds even, prompting Bert Sugar to quip, “The Jap thinks this guy ‘Even’ is now champion of the world.” British writer Hugh McIlvaney suggested he “might have scored Pearl Harbour a draw.” There was a huge disparity between the judges’ scorecards and the overall feeling of the sportswriters: Jerry Lisker, New York Post, 11-4; Dick Young, New York Post, 10-4-1; Pete Axthelm, Newsweek, 9-5-1; Phil Pepe, New York Daily News, 11-3-1; Stan Hochman, Philadelphia Daily News, 8-5-2; John Schulian, Chicago Sun-Times, 8-5-2; Joe Gergen, Newsday, 10-4-1; Bob Verdi, Chicago Tribune, 9-4-2; Will Grimsley, Associated Press, 8-7, all for Hagler. The morning headlines ranged from “Hagler is still champ, but invincible no more,” to “Mere Survival Isn’t a Revival for Duran,” to “Hagler Survives Duran.”
Radio analyst Gil Clancy managed to grab the loser afterwards. “I was the only guy he would talk to after the fight. He said, ‘Popi, muy cansado.’ He said he was very tired. I had him ahead going into the thirteenth round and then Hagler came back to win the last couple rounds.”
The consensus seemed to be that Hagler deserved to win but Duran was a moral victor. “Hagler was intimidated by Duran,” said trainer Emanuel Steward. “I don’t know why, but he just was. Duran got to him.” Had he stolen one of the last two rounds, the challenger would have become the first man in history to rule four divisions. “Duran Steals All The Glory” was the headline in the British trade magazine Boxing News. “The stigma of the ‘no más’ fiasco in New Orleans in the Ray Leonard rematch is erased forever, and his place with the ring’s immortals is assured,” wrote its editor, Harry Mullan. “Hagler’s post-fight comment, that ‘If I’d had one more round I could have knocked him out, but all I wanted to do was to win, and I did’ provided a precise illustration of the difference between these two modern greats. Hagler, the bleak professional, had been to work: but Duran, wonderful, unconquerable, fiery Duran, had been to war.”
A lot of spectators felt Hagler let Duran off the hook by thinking and not acting. He was too methodical in his approach. Against Duran, he rarely made a move without calculating the repercussions. “If Marvin had put more pressure on early,” admitted Pat Petronelli, “it wouldn’t have gone fifteen.” Adding insult to the criticisms of his performance, the WBC withdrew its recognition of Hagler as champion because the bout had been fought over fifteen rounds rather than the new WBC maximum of twelve. It was a typically churlish action on the part of one of the governing bodies, who often seemed less concerned with governance than with making money from sanctioning fees and exercising their dubious authority.
“A lot of people think his best fight was with Leonard, and I was there in Montreal. But that is a personal opinion. I thought that was his best fight, right there,” said Luis Spada of the Hagler fight. “After the thirteenth round, he was one point ahead. You need to take into consideration that Roberto had the body of a lightweight. To fight with middleweights that was something else. Duran was outboxing him even though Hagler was taller and had a longer reach. He learned over the years with Ray Arcel and Freddie Brown to be a complete boxer. In that fight he was like a helicopter. You watch that fight and sometimes he was over-boxing, but he was punching to the body then moving to the side beautifully.”
Hagler tried to justify his risk-free strategy after the bout. “I fought him at half-distance,” he told a boxing writer. “I was waiting for him to unload so I could score on him. Whichever hand he unloaded with I was ready to counter. I was beating him without mixing it up too much. You don’t barrel in on a guy like Duran.” A commentator reiterated what many believed to be true: Hagler won the fight, but Duran won the night. “I was a little tight. It wasn’t the atmosphere. It was inside. It was between Roberto and myself,” said Hagler. Still,