After his close call win over Roberto Duran on November 10, 1983, Marvin Hagler (who legally changed his name to Marvelous Marvin Hagler in 1982) signed to take on tough Juan Domingo Roldan on March 30, 1984 at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. The bout was being broadcast live on HBO, and with no means to see it, had to settle on the rebroadcast on CBS a few weeks later.
Marvin went down from a slip early into the fight, and many today still think it was a legal knockdown. One of the worst all-time referees in my opinion is Tony Perez, who missed the fact that Marvin slipped, and falsely called it a knockdown. Marvin Hagler had one of the best chins in the history of boxing, and the fact is he never hit the canvas once in his entire career. Despite Perez’s blunder, Hagler chugged forward, and chopped down Roldan bit by bit. He dropped him in the third, and after another seven rounds of punishing him, stopped him in the tenth. Marvin proved his greatness, and set his eyes on his next challenger.
Mustafa Hamsho was the number one contender, so on October 19, 1984 agreed to fight the ‘Marvelous One’ at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The two men had met previously, in October of 1981, when Hagler opened up Hamsho’s face to the tune of 55 stiches, before stopping him in eleven rounds. For this fight, my mom was babysitting over my cousin’s Paul’s house, who had a state of the art big screen projection TV in his recreation room at the time. While my mom read a book and my little cousins slept, I tuned to HBO to catch the action.
Marvin looked spectacular in easily disposing of Hamsho in two quick rounds, and it was quick night for me over my cousin’s house. The Hagler-Hearns bout had been talked about for months, and with both fighters having defeated their mandatory contenders, agreed to meet in the spring of 1985. It was the big fight that boxing had been waiting for, and I couldn’t wait to see it either.
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