Sport

Memories of Marvelous... Marvin Hagler, Jim Montague and the Boston Garden in 1978

That night in Wembley. Marvin Hagler catches defending champion Alan Minter with a vicious right hook.
That night in Wembley. Marvin Hagler catches defending champion Alan Minter with a vicious right hook. That night in Wembley. Marvin Hagler catches defending champion Alan Minter with a vicious right hook.

MEMORIES of ‘Marvelous’. As a kid in growing up in the 1980s, when he was at his peak, I regarded Marvin Hagler as the ultimate bogey man. I still regard him as the ultimate fighter. ‘Marvelous’ was an indestructible black force, a brooding, snarling, shaven-headed terror: Look at him sideways and he’d rip you to shreds.

“Joe Frazier told me there were three things going against me: One, I was black; two: I was a southpaw; and three: I was good. He was right, it was never easy,” he recalled, long after he’d hung up his gloves. It was never easy but despite the prejudices and constant snubs he found a way to reach the very top.

I remember the Alan Minter fight in 1980 when Hagler, who’d been denied a title shot for far too long, was finally crowned the undisputed world middleweight king. After three bloody rounds, the fight was stopped because of England’s Minter gaping cut and a riot ensued. Poor old BBC commentator Harry Carpenter took a few blows on the head at ringside as bottles and chairs flew towards the Wembley ring from all angles.

After that, the chat on the school bus turned to Hagler’s series of title defences and the absolute best including Roberto Duran, Tommy Hearns, John ‘the Beast’ Mugabi and finally Sugar Ray Leonard.

We were all enthralled by him. A friend of mine named his dog ‘Hagler’ (I had argued for ‘Marvin’) and I was still fresh-faced when a school mate told me how the Brockton-raised Hall of Famer grew his beard before a fight so he could rasp the bristles down the side of an opponent’s face. Even his facial hair was dangerous!

The fights were spectacular, global events. After taking the belt from Minter, Hagler won 11 of his next dozen inside the distance. He out-fought Duran (the only man to go to the distance) and there was the timeless classic against Hearns (‘The War’) when the pair of them collided in a furious display of balletic savagery that ended with Hagler last man standing in the third.

His athleticism, skills and punching power were of the highest quality but he was denied the victorious ending he deserved when savvy Ray Leonard hoodwinked the judges and took a disputed split decision win in Las Vegas. That’s boxing.

Sadly, the legend passed away on Saturday at the age of 66 and all boxing fans have their personal memories of the career of a cross-over star who, as part of the ‘Four Kings’ along with the Duran, Hearns and Leonard, carried on the torch from Muhammad Ali until the era of Mike Tyson.

Some of those fans were lucky enough to meet him and discover that, far from being a bogey-man, Hagler was actually a warm-hearted human being.

Belfast welterweight Jim Montague not only got to meet him, he got to know him after they shared the same Boston bill in 1978. Montague versus Tony Petronelli was chief support to Hagler’s clash with Kevin Finnegan at the Boston Garden.

Tony (who had mixed it with Wilifred Benitez for the world title a couple of years previously) was part of the Petronelli family clan that dominated boxing in Boston during that era - his father Pat and uncle ‘Goody’ (Guerino) were Hagler’s cornerman and Jim got the offer to fight him just three days before the bill.

Back then, with money scarce and a young family to rear, Jim’s first question when he was told of a possible contest wasn’t ‘who’s the opponent?’ or ‘where’s the fight?’ It was: ‘What’s the money?’ If the money was right, he grabbed his gloves.

“My manager sent me a telegram,” Jim explained.

“I had no phone, so I had to go up to our local Post Office and ring him and he said: ‘We’ve got a fight for you?’ And once he told me the money I said: ‘Yeah, ok, that’s alright’. Compared to now it was a pittance but in 1978 we had just come back from England and settled in Antrim so it was absolute millions to us then.

“I wasn’t even working and my youngest Owen was only one so I couldn’t take the offer quick enough.”

After agreeing to the fight he then found out that his opponent was the aforementioned Petronelli (whose original adversary Pat McCormack, the British champion, had pulled out) and that the bill was in Boston so Jim hastily threw his gear in a bag and made the trip over to Massachusetts. He arrived in the city along with Finnegan (brother of European light-heavyweight champion Chris) and Hagler was one of the first visitors to his hotel.

“I knew of him before I went over to fight but I wasn’t expecting the guy I met,” Jim recalls.

“He came down to say hello and have a bit of a chat and said if there was anything I wanted, or anything he could do for me to let him know.

“He made a point of looking after me. He was tough as nails but he was a nice guy - he would pick me up at the hotel and bring me to the gym and we went out for a meal a couple of times.

“The two guys who trained him – the Petronelli brothers – were the top men in Boston, everybody moved to the side when the Petronellis came in.”

Maybe so, but Jim didn’t move anywhere for Tony Petronelli in the ring at Boston Garden that Saturday night. They had shared six bruising rounds before the Belfast man caught the New Englander with a peach of a right hook in the seventh. Petronelli (who was stopped twice in 47 fights) went down and didn’t get back up.

“I knew once I landed it, that he wasn’t going to get up from it,” says Jim, who represented Ireland at the 1972 Olympic Games.

“It was a big upset for them.”

He arrived home victorious but he’d barely unpacked by the time the offer of a rematch came through. His manager Philip McLoughlin called to ask if he’d be interested in going back out to Boston and Jim talked through the terms and agreed.

“I left all the details to Phillip but one thing I was said was that I had to make sure Sally (his wife) got a holiday out of it because we had booked for Spain and I had to cancel that,” he explains.

“He got back to me later on and said they were willing to put us up in the top hotel in Boston, cover all the flights and everything else on top of the money I was getting for the fight. So there was really no decision to make.”

The rematch was back at the Boston Garden and, in searing July heat, this time Petronelli won on points. Meanwhile, at ringside, his wife Sally was chaperoned by Marvin Hagler.

“Next to Mohammad Ali, Hagler was the best,” says Jim who kept in touch with ‘Marvelous’ for several years afterwards.

“He was an absolute legend. Look at the fighter he was – he was absolute dynamite and I’m so glad I got a chance to meet the guy. From where he came from, fighting was second nature to him, he grew up with it and it turned him into a world champion and a millionaire.

“He was scary looking! But such a nice guy.”