Marvin Hagler continued to fight often as the years decade of the seventies progressed. By late 1979, he had a record of 46-2-1, with 38 knockouts, when he signed to fight Vito Antuofermo, the Middleweight Champion. The fight would be held at Caesar’s Palace on November 30, 1979, and be the undercard bout to Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Wilfred Benitez.
I was tuning in to see Sugar Ray quite frankly, and being a new boxing fan, had barely heard of either Hagler or Antuofermo. As I watched the action on my 11 inch black and white TV in my bedroom, I was impressed with Hagler’s skills and boxing ability. To me he was easily winning the fight, opening cuts all over Vito’s face, and at the end of 15 rounds, figured he was the new champ. However, boxing being what it is, the judges scored the bout a draw. Years later I learned that Antuofermo was owned by the mob, and the decision was fixed so he could retain his title. That explained how a short, limited fighter who took a beating was given a draw.
The middleweight title stayed with Vito, and Marvin returned to Brockton bitter and disappointed. Despite the largest purse of his career of $190,000, Hagler went home and returned to his construction job, not willing to quit until he had the security of the title in his possession.
Marvin would fight three times between March and May of 1980, and win two of the three by knockout. Antuofermo would lose the middleweight belt to Alan Minter in his next title defense on March 16, 1980 back at Caesar’s Palace by split-decision. When they fought again on June 28 in England, Minter cut Vito to pieces, stopping him in eight rounds. That opened the door for Marvin, who signed to fight Minter on September 27 at Wembley Arena. The second shot at the title for Marvin would be a whole lot different that the first one, that’s for certain.
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