Well, first of all, when I heard about this and it was unexpected, it hit me like a ton of bricks, like I'm not used to reacting that way when athletes I admire passed.

But I feel like a lot of people in my generation and Steven and I are more or less the same generation.

Um, this one hit hard people, my eldest daughter said, Yeah, because it makes you feel old because Hagler was the 80 like Hagler in the 19 eighties, it's hard to explain to people who weren't in that generation was Mike Tyson.

Before there was Mike Tyson, he was not only the best pound for pound, but he was the baddest man on the planet.

Even though he was a middleweight.

This guy was like he and he came up the hard way.

Joe Frazier, the great heavyweight champion, once told Haggler, You have three strikes against you.

You're black, you're southpaw and you're good, Meaning it's hard for you to find fights.

So you know what Hagler had to do?

He had to go.

He liked to Philadelphia at one point in his career is from Brockton, Massachusetts, where Rocky Marciano was from.

He went to Philadelphia for all the other avoided black middleweights of the day.

Bobby Boogaloo, Watts, Willy the Worm, Monroe, Eugene, Cyclone Hart, Sugar Ray Seales, all these guys and lost to a bunch of them the first time around and went right back in there with them and beat them.

And then some of them have fought a third time and knocked them out.

And by the time he emerged from that, he's ready for a title shot.

And he cleaned out the middleweight division involved in some of the biggest fight in that division's history, usually winning them when he lost the Sugar Ray Leonard, he didn't think he lost, and many people don't think he really lost that fight.

Stephen.

He never came back, and he went to Italy, became an action movie star in Italy.

I used to bump into Hagler, who was the nicest guy in the world, and he would speak English with a thick Italian accent, and eventually he leaves Italy and, like his accent, kind of.

He was an original and and an enormous cultural icon of the 19 eighties Greatest first round in boxing history As far as I'm concerned.

As Hagler vs Hearns Hearns won that round, but he instantly lost the fight a minute cause he was I mean, he he gave everything he had and Hagler kept coming.

And obviously Hagler put him to sleep in the third round.

We understand that, Um, but what stands out to me about Hagler outside of him, owning the division, cleaned out the middleweight division 80 to 87 undisputed middleweight champion of the world, 62 3, 61 or 62 3 never, ever, ever got knocked out.

Um, in his career avenged the loss, the veto and affirm.

Oh, you remember that when he when he came in straw they gave him a draw that he should have won, that he should have one.

Then he came in.

It was no draw the next time, finished him off.

Um, but what really stood out of my mind was at a time when boxing, obviously, we we lamented the state of affairs as it pertained to promote his Macs and the control that they had.

And what have you and he got?

He got robbed in his eyes.

he thought the split decision loss to Sugar Ray Leonard.

He thought he obviously deserved that victory and then years later, obviously, Sugar Ray wanted to fight them.

Sugar Ray wanted to rematch.

Obviously, people were clamoring for it.

He said no because he felt like you're the champion.

Somebody should have to come and take it from you.

You don't give it to somebody else.

I was the constant aggressor.

I kept coming.

I deserved to win that fight.

That was his mentality and a lot based on a lot of pride and principled.

You know this better than me when he was stuck on something.

If he believed that you were not going to change his mind.

And I had the pleasure of meeting in one time in Vegas and and I was the one that brought it up, he didn't bring it up.

But he's still to that day felt that he won that fight.

I can't repeat some of the things he's told me in languages.

You swore he would never fight again because he felt that the sport disrespected him by taking the title from him to Sugar Ray Leonard.

But he was marvelous in every sense of the word.

And then when you had a ring announcer that refused to call him marvelous illegally changes tomorrow so you had no choice but to call him off.

He was special Sugar Ray Leonard.

Special was supposed to be like he was the next Ali in terms of fame and popularity, and he won a gold medal in the Olympics, and Hagler always watched him as a guy who had things handed to me.

Shouldn't be one of the greatest writers of all time, but Hagler resented the fact that he was so blue collar.

Sugar Ray turned pro, made a ton of money.

Hagler didn't.

They fought for the title on the same card the first time Sugar Ray wins it.

Hagler gets ripped off in a draw.

You know, every step of the way Ray had it better than he did.

He felt so when they negotiated for their fight.

Sugar Ray said, You get more money, which Hagler wanted, but I wanted 12 rounds instead of 15, and had it been 15, Hagler would have won the fight, but his pride was so hurt by that he never fought again.

In spite of being offered close to probably $20 million for a rematch.

Back then, he was principled.

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