“Four Kings” Dream Fights: Marvin Hagler Vs Gennady “GGG” Golovkin – Fight I

By Roy “Sharpshooter” Bennett

An ex girlfriend wondering out loud once asked me why boxing fans are so obsessed with mythical match ups between boxers from different eras? To add insult to injury she then made the point that basketball fans didn’t argue about whether the 1950 Minneapolis Lakers could have beaten the 2014 San Antonio Spurs in the NBA playoffs, even though they were both championship winning teams.

My jaw dropped. So I went to get a beer from the refrigerator and gather my thoughts. This was clearly not the woman for me. She was beautiful and she was intelligent but she had to go. She didn’t understand that mythical match ups were the ultimate indulgence for boxing fans. When normal people had their backs turned, diehard fans of pugilism like to argue the merits of Joe Louis over Muhammad Ali or Harry Greb over Carlos Monzon, among others.

Short of having two boxers at the same weight doing great things in the same era who eventually fight, like Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns did at welterweight in 1981, mythical match ups were the next best thing. It is our right as boxing fans to break the rules of time, to leap across the ages, and match our favorite fighters against each other in their athletic primes. It is our guilty pleasure. But wait… It’s not as simple as it sounds. You’ve got to qualify why you’re batting for one boxer over another. It’s the unwritten “Golden Rule” of partaking in any mythical match up discussions. You have to be prepared to put up a good argument as to why your guy would smoke the opposition.

You’ve got to know your fighter’s strengths and weaknesses. You’ve got to know what made him special and what chinks he had in his armor. “Sure that fighter could punch but he hated training.”

Know your fighter. Or get the hell out of Dodge. If you’re misinformed or, worse, uninformed you could be the one getting smoked. There are a lot of people out there, ex fighters, trainers, record keepers, writers, and historians, among them, inhabiting the Internet boxing forums and group pages who are hardcore boxing heads who the term “Expert” truly applies to, and in the game of show and tell, they will rip you to shreds if you’re unable to present a coherent argument.

But I get it. They see it as their duty to protect the history of the sport from what I term as the, “Reality TV crowd.” Those misguided individuals who want to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. They will try to argue that Mike Tyson is the greatest heavyweight to ever walk the face of the earth. But yet none of them can qualify why they believe that to be the case without sounding foolish, because the evidence to support such an outlandish claim is simply not to be found in Tyson’s body of professional work. But as objective as we try to be, when it really boils down to it the fight game pulls at every human emotion. Joy, pride, disappointment, anger, and everything in-between.

It sometimes divides fans along national or ethnic lines. It lifts us up to dizzying heights and it drags us down into depressing lows. But boxing fans are like jilted lovers who keep coming back for that intense make up sex. Yeah, I said it. For us it’s the hope we’ll see that next Fight of the Year” or the “Super Fight” that surpasses all expectations. We’re hooked on it and can’t stay away.

We’re tied to the fighters we grew up watching. The music we listened to, the clothes we wore. The boxers we followed. All conjure up certain feelings. A bit like the smell of freshly baked bread might invoke a memory of a childhood moment at the family dining table. So, join me as I continue the mythical match up tradition by pitting the “Four Kings,” Marvin Hagler, Thomas Hearns, Sugar Ray Leonard, and Roberto Duran against four of today’s best.

All fights are scheduled for the championship distance of 15 rounds. You read that right. And we’re going with same day weigh-ins too. None of this putting on twenty pounds over night nonsense. If any of these rules upset you, you’re watching the wrong sport. Go watch Ping Pong instead. There’s no political correctness here. This is the hardest game there is. Heavyweight Champion Joe Frazier said it best, “Boxing is the only game where you can get your brain shook, your money took, and your name in the undertaker’s book.”

I’ve seen many heated arguments on the boards and forums over the years between fans of different fighters and when it comes to mythical match ups things sometimes tend toward the ultra serious with neither side willing to budge in the discussion. So, in the spirit of injecting a little light heartedness into the proceedings I’m going to use a few quotes from the Rocky movies to describe a certain energy around each fight. So get your hands up and your mouthpiece in. Here we go. “Ding Ding”.

“I don’t care what you’re ranked. You don’t get no shot!”— Mickey Goldmill

Mickey, Rocky’s trainer, was trying to protect his fighter from Clubber Lang the most dangerous challenger to come along in years. Hagler and Golovkin both fit that description perfectly. Hagler suffered from the same perception that GGG does today. Too much risk for too little reward. They’re members of what I like to call the, “who needs him club.” On his ring walk Hagler, 64-3-2, 52 KO’s, wore the hood of his robe like the grim reaper’s cowl. Once in the ring, the shaved skull, the menacing glare, and the torso rippling with muscle all added to the air of intimidation that emanated from him in waves. By the time 1979 rolled round Hagler had built a formidable reputation as a very dangerous southpaw fighter people didn’t want any part of. Everybody had an excuse. Sound familiar? GGG finds himself in the same predicament today. He’s too good for his own good.

A tremendously hard and dedicated trainer, Hagler would set up training camp, which he used to call “Jail,” in the harsh windswept environs of Cape Cod. And when he emerged he entered the ring with the unwavering iron will of a warrior king ready to do battle.

Golovkin, 33-0, 30 KO’s, is a dangerous proposition for any fighter in the modern game due to his punching power and the quality of his technique. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. GGG has got bricks for hands. However, Hagler faced big several punchers during his career, most famously John Mugabi and Thomas Hearns. He had a granite chin, took their best shots, and ripped them both apart prior to knocking them both out for the full count.

GGG would try to cut the ring off but Hagler had great footwork and wouldn’t stand in front of him. Although GGG is an excellent body puncher, Hagler always kept his hands in the classical defensive position, with his chin down, his elbows well tucked into his sides and kept his midsection well protected.

Hagler utilized a “shotgun” type jab, sometimes delivered with a forward leap, which busted up many a face. It was a hard piston like jab and after four rounds I can see GGG’s face becoming a mass of welts and bruises from eating too many of them. Let’s face it Golovkin hasn’t proved that hard to hit even for guys like Willie Monroe, JR. and Daniel Geale.

If the light punching Monroe could mark him up then Hagler definitely would. Sure GGG mowed them both down but he was there to be hit. When Hagler faced big punchers he took their best weapons away from them with a combination of smart skillful boxing and big punching, as he did with England’s Tony Sibson, or by either backing them up with ferocious pressure and forcing them to fight on the inside, as he did with Hearns and Mugabi. I see the Marvelous one taking his time breaking GGG apart with the southpaw jab, slamming in the left hand down the pipe and employing smooth lateral footwork to keep him from getting set to deliver any heavy artillery.

As GGG begins to wear down and tire from the accumulated punishment, Hagler would begin to sit down on his punches more and mix more body shots, uppercuts, and hooks into his combinations. With his left eye almost swollen shut and unable to see the hard southpaw punches raining down on him, the referee steps in to save the brave, but badly beaten “GGG” from further damage by the 11th round.

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