TO A STANDSTILL
11 consecutive times. That meant nothing to Mugabi, however, because he had come to Vegas as most young men do, with a head filled with the kind of confidence that comes with being undefeated in life. Before midnight on that chilly evening, he would have a new perspective on life and a swollen face. Mugabi had been born in Kampala, the capital city of Uganda. It is a city of mostly hard parts, but Mugabi was spawned from the hardest, dropping out of school at the age of 7 after his father died in an auto accident. Nobody came looking for him. By the age of 9, he was a gang member, a thief and a street fighter. He wasn’t called “The Beast” for nothing.
“When I was a baby, I had to steal my dinners,” Mugabi recalled. “Now I walk in through the front door. Anybody who tried to abuse me, I kicked his ass. “I was good, but I fought [on the street] so people would say, ‘This kid can beat even five people.’ It is why I can fight anybody. I have fought since I was 9. Nobody do nothing for John Mugabi. It is God who taught me to fight.” Now 26 years old, Mugabi was the owner of an unblemished record of 25-0. Every opponent he’d faced had failed to go the distance with him. Unfortunately for Mugabi, he was not the only man God had taught to fight. Hagler had come up from similarly hard circumstances in Newark, New Jersey. He had become a
relentless warrior too, a fighter who understood challenges and young men like Mugabi, men filled with hope and belief and bad intentions. He understood who “The Beast” was, but he also understood himself. It’s why he had gone to court to make “Marvelous” his legal name. The 31-year-old Hagler was 61-2-2 with 51 knockouts by this stage of his career and was coming off a brutal third- round knockout of one of boxing’s true superstars, Thomas Hearns, 11 months earlier. It was not only the Fight of the Year. For many, it was, and remains, the greatest middleweight fight in boxing history. It was certainly the most spectacular, a three-round dogfight in which Hagler survived murderous blows without taking a backward step from one of boxing’s hardest punchers before ending Hearns’ Las Vegas dream with a barrage of punches that left his legs rubbery and his mind blinking like a tilted pinball machine. Hearns had lasted less than nine minutes in the presence of Marvelous Marvin Hagler before it was game over. Hearns was in Las Vegas as well to fight a man named James Shuler. If he and Hagler both won, they were set to face each other again later in the year. But such had become the celebrity and mystique of Marvin Hagler that the size of Hearns’ purse for a rematch was to be based on what he did with Shuler. Hearns had a unique series of clauses in his contract with Hagler’s promoter, Top Rank’s Bob Arum. If he knocked Shuler out within six rounds, he would be guaranteed $3.5 million for the rematch. If he knocked him out within 12 rounds, he would be guaranteed $3.25 million. If he won by decision, his purse for facing Hagler would shrink to only $3 million. “Hagler’s the only man I really still want to fight,” Hearns insisted that week. “It’s a fact that we don’t communicate. He hates my guts and I hate his. It’s not like it was with Ray Leonard. Leonard and I went out a few times. We had some good times. The only place I would take Hagler is to a mud- wrestling match so I could throw some mud on him. “I respect him as a fighter, but as a person, I don’t think much of him. I hate the ground he walks on.” What Hearns actually hated was the ground Hagler sat him on with a barrage of punches that left him semiconscious. Neither Hagler nor Mugabi were concerned with Hearns, however. Hagler figured he’d blow up that bridge when he came to it, while Mugabi believed after he was done with Hagler, he would be the one who decides which opponent he would face next. “I realize Mugabi has the same dream I had,” Hagler said before the fight. “He wants to be the champion. But it took me a long time to put food on the table and to wear nice clothes. Nobody is taking that away from me.
“I know my position. Guys like Mugabi keep coming up, keep coming after me, keep coming to take what I got. I help them gain financial security. This is what I do. I make ’em and then I break ’em.” The road to this match had long been a broken trail itself, as long and arduous a trek as the fight would become that night. It was originally scheduled for November 14, 1985, but Hagler, who was suffering from a sore back at the time, had his nose broken in training when a young sparring partner named Zach Hewitt accidentally butted him. It was only the first in a string of difficulties. Shuler and Mugabi at the time had been Hagler’s and Hearns’ respective mandatory challengers for the titles they held (Hearns was still junior middleweight champion despite his loss to Hagler), but Mugabi had moved to middleweight in hopes of facing Hagler while Shuler agreed to take $250,000 in step-aside money from Hagler and landed the fight against Hearns instead. The first snag developed when the WBA then promoted its No. 2 contender, James Kinchen, to No. 1 and threatened Hagler that it would strip him of its version of the title if he refused to face the new mandatory challenger. Hagler was unwilling to give up the WBA title, as that would mean he was no longer undisputed champion, and such was his celebrity after the dramatic win over Hearns that he now had the power to influence the sanctioning body’s thinking. Prior to stopping Hearns, Hagler was a well- respected boxer within his profession, but outside of it he was veritably unknown. After his brutal victory, Hagler had become so popular to the general public that he began doing nationally televised ads for men’s deodorant, pizza and other items, only adding to his sudden star status. By the time the WBA threatened him, he had more sway in the marketplace of public opinion than it did, and both sides knew it. Arum began negotiating a settlement with WBA president Gilberto Mendoza, ultimately convincing him to install Mugabi as its No. 1 middleweight contender. Kinchen quickly sued Hagler, Arum and the WBA, saying, “I’d rather fight Hagler in the ring than in court.” The WBA immediately reversed course. But in boxing, as in many ways of life, money talks and all else walks. In this case, Kinchen walked into a two-fight promotional deal with Arum to face top contenders Iran Barkley and Juan Roldan, which proved to be a good deal for Mugabi, who got his shot at Hagler. It was also good for Hagler, who got his shot at earning a guaranteed $2.5 million plus an upside from the closed-circuit and pay-per-view sales on Showtime. In the case of Kinchen, the deal did not work out so well. He lost both fights and never got a 160-pound title shot. Mugabi, meanwhile, entered the ring as the No. 1-ranked middleweight in the world, and Hagler remained the undisputed champion of the IBF, WBA and WBC as well as the Ring Magazine champion. That’s boxing. Hagler was a heavy 3-to-1 betting favorite when the two men walked into the chilly outdoor arena constructed behind
Hagler’s powerful and accurate southpaw jab was an awesome weapon against Mugabi, who got badly busted up.
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