Hagler Still Feeling Sting of the Bitter Loss to Leonard

One of the biggest fights in boxing history ended more than seven months ago, yet the reward of victory and the sting of defeat is felt as strongly by the competitors as on the night of the bout.

Ray Leonard’s split decision over Marvin Hagler April 6 at Las Vegas, Nev., gave him the World Boxing Council middleweight championship and put him on top of the boxing world. He used the victory, which ended a 35-month retirement, as a springboard to lucrative financial deals inside and outside of boxing.

The close defeat sent Hagler into a funk, which he only recently seemed to escape. The loss of his title was followed by the break-up of his marriage and a withdrawal from the public eye.

“Hagler made this all possible,” Leonard said recently, pointing to a group of executives from a beer company that hired him as a spokesman and sponsors his boxing team. The group had gathered to meet Leonard, shake his hand and ask for autographs.

“That fight took care of a burning desire, it eliminated that itch,” he said. “If I didn’t fight Hagler, it would have bothered me the rest of my life.”

Losing to Leonard may bother Hagler the rest of his life. He refused to comment publicly about the bout or his future until last month, when he and Leonard faced off after Thomas Hearns’ knockout of Juan Roldan to win the title Leonard vacated soon after defeating Hagler.

“I have to go on with my life, I don’t like to be in this position,” Hagler said at an Oct. 27 press conference. “It’s not my dream to go out like this. I wanted to retire as undisputed champion.

“If the outcome was the other way I would have retired because I wanted to go out as undisputed champion.”

Hagler’s $19 million take from the bout, which grossed about $80 million, didn’t make his loss any less bitter. He still says he thought he won, blaming the loss on boxing politics. The painful memories of the setback may bring him back to fight again, preferably against Leonard. Leonard, who earned about $12 million for the victory and more than $50 million for his career, says he wants no more of fighting.

“I said ‘One fight, and one fight only,”’ said Leonard, 31. “Now everybody has amnesia.”

Leonard, who lives with his wife and two children in Potomac, Md., plans to keep active in the sport as a manager and promoter. He also has asked to work for the 1988 U.S. Olympic team as a technical adviser and is waiting for an answer.

Hearns would be happy to fight Hagler or Leonard, the only two boxers who have beaten him. Hagler might be persuaded to meet Hearns, in hopes that Leonard will come back to fight the winner.

“I won the fight, in my heart,” said Hagler, who says he is 32 but may be as old as 35. “I just can’t see how he won. The public has been positive to me, they know I won the fight. I don’t hold it against Leonard, he’s not a judge. If the public demands that I come back, that’s the way I’d like to have it.

“The only fight out there for me is Leonard. Leonard gave up my belt, so if I fight him now it would be for my own personal reasons.