05/23/2026
Marvelous Marvin Hagler is my favorite boxer of all time. To read this just solidifies what i already knew about the man !
SPORTS OF THE TIMES; FOR HAGLER, IT'S OLD HAT
WHEN it was time to spar, Marvelous Marvin Hagler grabbed the jar of Vaseline and smeared some on his face and neck. Most boxers let their trainers do that, tilting their heads as if they were getting a facial. But not the undisputed and unspoiled world middleweight champion.
He smeared it on himself, quickly, unceremoniously. Then he reached into his equipment bag and pulled out an old baseball cap, once navy blue with a maroon peak, now faded and shapeless. Just an old baseball cap with no logo, no nothing. He put it on his shaved head, then he pulled on his black leather headgear.
About 20 minutes later, after six rounds of sparring, Hagler's manager, Pat Petronelli, yanked off the headgear and the cap fell in a soggy heap. The manager toweled the headgear, then he picked up the cap and wrung it out with his hands, the perspiration squirting onto the floor. Almost tenderly, he put the cap back in the champion's equipment bag.
''I don't know how old that hat is, a couple years at least,'' Petronelli was saying now as Hagler peppered the light bag. ''He'll get a new one whenever this one rots off his head from the sweat. But it's got to rot. He loves that old hat. When he goes back to his room, he puts it out on the porch to dry so it's ready for his next workout. And if he forgets it, he'll say, 'Get my old hat.' He loves that old hat.''
But then Marvelous Marvin Hagler is old hat himself, a gladiator without guile, a pugilist without pretense.
But as boxing entourages go, Hagler has only the bare necessities. With him are the Petronelli brothers (his manager, Pat and his trainer, Goody), four sparring partners, a public-relations counselor, a Top Rank coordinator, and two other Petronelli boxers training for other bouts in Las Vegas, Nev.
Shortly before noon, Hagler had strolled alone into the Americana Canyon Hotel lobby where he does his interviews. Alone. No bodyguards. No hangers-on. Nobody.
For several years now, the middleweight champion has been the torch in boxing's darkness. Mike Tyson is just beginning to glow while other champions come and go, like spoonfuls of alphabet soup. But this champion has endured: unbeaten in more than a decade, a titleholder since 1980, a 62-2-2 record with 52 knockouts.
Several hours later, the perspiration wrung out of his old hat showed that the middleweight champion was training as hard as ever. He finished his workout with situps in tune to a tape of the Montgomery Band singing, ''Marvelous. . .Marvelous Marvin Hagler.'' Then he slipped into his blue satin sweatsuit.
''Thanks,'' he said to the 100 spectators in the tent. ''Thanks for comin' down.'' Then the middleweight champion slung his equipment bag over his right shoulder and put on a new white baseball cap with two words on it. No mercy.
- Dave Anderson
