Home
Hi guys
Just finished reading an interesting book called Four Kings which claimed that the 80's possibly produced the last great era of boxing. The four kings of the title were "Marvellous" Marvin Hagler, "Sugar" Ray Leonard, "Hit Man" Tommy Hearns and "Manos de Piedra" Roberto Duran - they fought each other 9 times in the 80's, producing some of the most memorable moments in boxing history. Controversial decisions, fights widely regarded as some of the greatest of all time (Hagler-Hearns and Leonard-Hearns 1 come to mind), and the famous "No Mas" fight in 1980 meant that this era would be historically significant for the sport of boxing.
For someone who grew up in that period, I didn't realise how important these battles were and like most kids in the 80's thought boxing was about Tyson smashing the shit out of everyone.
Not only that the book opened my eyes to the dodgy practices that went on behind the scenes in boxing, particularly promotion, during the late 70's which probably still carry on today.
My favourite out of those guys was Hagler - more for his image than anything else and after reading that book, although the author seemed to favour him, he seemed like he had the hardest mountain to climb. Well after Duran anyway.... While Leonard was probably the best boxer of the lot of them, he seemed to pick his opportunities to take advantage of the others when they were not at their best, Hagler in particular.
Will there ever be an era like this again, where 4 boxers are matched up and are able to bring the best out of each other like these guys did in the 80's? There will undoubtedly be boxers of their calibre again but will they have the rivalries that these had, that define that persons career? There seems to be a whole lot more politics involved these days and the big match ups don't seem to happen as often as they did back then, and it is one of the reasons boxing is losing it's popularity.
To put this into an MMA context, can you think of any rivalries that can compare to the one above? Can you see any like this in the near future? The first one that comes to mind for me is the Couture-Liddell-Ortiz threesome who really put MMA on the map in the early Zuffa days.....
I know there are some big boxing fans out there and I would like to hear some of your opinions on whether the author of this book was right and of the boxers themselves.
"Marvellous" Marvin Hagler 62-3-2 (52 KOs)
"Sugar" Ray Leonard 36-3-1 (25 KOs)
"Hit Man" Tommy Hearns 61-5-1 (48 KOs)
"Manos de Piedra" Roberto Duran 103-16-0 (70 KOs)
Just finished reading an interesting book called Four Kings which claimed that the 80's possibly produced the last great era of boxing. The four kings of the title were "Marvellous" Marvin Hagler, "Sugar" Ray Leonard, "Hit Man" Tommy Hearns and "Manos de Piedra" Roberto Duran - they fought each other 9 times in the 80's, producing some of the most memorable moments in boxing history. Controversial decisions, fights widely regarded as some of the greatest of all time (Hagler-Hearns and Leonard-Hearns 1 come to mind), and the famous "No Mas" fight in 1980 meant that this era would be historically significant for the sport of boxing.
For someone who grew up in that period, I didn't realise how important these battles were and like most kids in the 80's thought boxing was about Tyson smashing the shit out of everyone.
Not only that the book opened my eyes to the dodgy practices that went on behind the scenes in boxing, particularly promotion, during the late 70's which probably still carry on today.
My favourite out of those guys was Hagler - more for his image than anything else and after reading that book, although the author seemed to favour him, he seemed like he had the hardest mountain to climb. Well after Duran anyway.... While Leonard was probably the best boxer of the lot of them, he seemed to pick his opportunities to take advantage of the others when they were not at their best, Hagler in particular.
Will there ever be an era like this again, where 4 boxers are matched up and are able to bring the best out of each other like these guys did in the 80's? There will undoubtedly be boxers of their calibre again but will they have the rivalries that these had, that define that persons career? There seems to be a whole lot more politics involved these days and the big match ups don't seem to happen as often as they did back then, and it is one of the reasons boxing is losing it's popularity.
To put this into an MMA context, can you think of any rivalries that can compare to the one above? Can you see any like this in the near future? The first one that comes to mind for me is the Couture-Liddell-Ortiz threesome who really put MMA on the map in the early Zuffa days.....
I know there are some big boxing fans out there and I would like to hear some of your opinions on whether the author of this book was right and of the boxers themselves.
"Marvellous" Marvin Hagler 62-3-2 (52 KOs)
"Sugar" Ray Leonard 36-3-1 (25 KOs)
"Hit Man" Tommy Hearns 61-5-1 (48 KOs)
"Manos de Piedra" Roberto Duran 103-16-0 (70 KOs)
), it had some widely anticapted rematches and featured 3 of best of all time.
