Probably the most famous, oft-repeated quote about Marvelous Marvin Hagler – recycled almost every time a boxer with similar qualities comes along – was uttered just over a half-century ago.
According to promoter J Russell Peltz’s 2021 memoir Thirty Dollars and a Cut Eye, it was when Hagler was training at the Cloverlay Gym in Philadelphia for his January 13, 1976, fight against Bobby “Boogaloo” Watts at the Spectrum that former heavyweight champ Joe Frazier told him, “You have three strikes against you — you’re Black, you’re a southpaw and you’re good.”
On fight night – exactly 50 years ago today – Hagler picked up a fourth strike: After 10 rounds with Watts, he was no longer undefeated.
At least officially.
A bout that could have – should have, really – been just a random, unremarkable line on two men’s BoxRec pages instead carries historical significance, because Watts vs. Hagler marked the first defeat of an all-time great middleweight’s Hall of Fame career.
It was the first of Hagler’s five main event fights at the Spectrum (home to the NBA’s 76ers and NHL’s Flyers), and the first of his seven bouts against the Philly quartet of Watts, Willie “The Worm” Monroe, Eugene “Cyclone” Hart and “Bad” Bennie Briscoe. It was also only Hagler’s second fight outside New England (the other being a 1974 draw in Seattle against local fighter “Sugar” Ray Seales).
Watts vs. Hagler was not without other vaguely meaningful historical footnotes. But it is primarily remembered 50 years later as the first time Hagler lost a professional fight – and as the first time, but certainly not the last, that he could claim he was robbed.
“It should have been a unanimous decision for Marvin Hagler. That’s all there is to it,” Philadelphia-based boxing journalist Nigel Collins told BoxingScene this week. Collins is now a Hall of Famer like Hagler, but at the time he was an up-and-coming reporter who sat along the ring apron for all the great Spectrum fights of the ’70s,.
“I didn’t have any doubt that Hagler won — until it was announced that he hadn’t,” Collins said.
The fight is available on YouTube, although it’s not an easy one to score accurately via that video. The footage is grainy and does not include authentic sound, meaning viewers can’t hear the punches (helpful for determining what lands) and can’t always see the action clearly.
That said, watching it last week, I tallied seven rounds for Hagler and three for Watts, and could more easily have landed on 8-2 than on 6-4.
Officially, however, using a five-point scoring system, referee Hank Cisco made it a 46-46 draw, while Earl Vann scored it 46-44 and Nate Lopinson 48-44, both in favor of the hometown fighter, Watts.
“I looked at Lopinson and blew him away with the wave you give someone you never want to see again,” wrote Peltz, the promoter of the card, in his book.
“On the way to my office,” Peltz continued, “I ran into Spectrum President Allen Flexer. ‘How could they do that?’ he asked. When I saw [Hagler promoter Sam] Silverman, sitting outside Hagler’s dressing room, I apologized. He brushed me off, saying he’d seen it before.”
The announced Spectrum crowd of 6,167 reportedly booed the decision as well – although this wasn’t a case of Hagler gradually winning over the Philly fans and becoming the crowd favorite over the course of 10 rounds.
“Bobby Watts was a really good boxer. He was really fast. He knew what to do. He didn’t want to get hit. And that didn’t make him a favorite in Philadelphia – a lot of Philadelphia fans don’t like that style,” Collins pointed out. “If there were 6,000 people in the crowd, I think there were maybe about 100 of them that wanted Watts to win.”
The 26-year-old Watts came in with a record of 27-3-1 (14 KOs), riding high as the top-rated young Philly middleweight of the moment, having scored wins over both Monroe and Hart in ’74 at the Spectrum.
Brockton, Massachusetts’ Hagler, meanwhile, was 25-0-1 (19 KOs), but less proven than Watts. He had the draw with Seales in Seattle and, three months before that, a unanimous decision win over Seales in Boston. But that was the extent of his experience at this level.
The chrome-domed Hagler was a mere 21 years old at the dawn of the bicentennial year of 1976 – at least according to his publicly acknowledged date of birth. Many speculated throughout his career that he was actually a couple of years older than the official records said.
As Peltz wrote, Hagler was ready in ’76 to push for recognition outside New England, so Silverman brought him to Philadelphia for a purse of $2,000 (adjusted for inflation, that would be a little over $11,000 today).
Peltz recalled that Hagler recited a poem at the pre-fight press luncheon, concluding with the following lines:
The Spectrum crowd is in for a treat,
Cause one of their best is doomed to defeat.
In the city where Rocky took the crown,
Another Brocktonian will go to town.”
To be clear, the “Rocky” referenced here is Marciano, not Balboa, as the latter’s first film wasn’t released until November ’76.
For the most part, the Brocktonian did go to town, though he couldn’t make good on his promise of a treat for the crowd. Not that the fight was terrible. It was just choppy, mostly because “Boogaloo” did a little bit of dancing and a whole lot of holding.
Round after round, Hagler was the one coming forward and making the fight. He landed almost all of the significant power punches – including an occasional taste of the sort of leaping shots that would fell Tommy Hearns nine years later.
Watts boxed beautifully in the fifth round, winning that one without question. A handful of others along the way were close. But for the most part, “The Marvelous One” carried the action and looked a cut above his more defensive-minded, shifty opponent.
Remove the scores and the outcome from the conversation, and, knowing what we now know about Hagler, you might be inclined to celebrate the way Watts – a forgotten fighter, at least compared to Hagler – proved perfectly competitive against a future great.
But that was not the prevailing tone of the moment. As Peltz recalled, not a single member of the ringside press scored the fight for Watts, and Gene Courtney’s post-fight story in The Philadelphia Inquirer began, “Marvin Hagler, the boxer-poet from Brockton, Mass., disproved the invincibility of Philadelphia’s middleweights but he didn’t count on the ineptitude of the local judges.”
To Collins, it was a robbery, but it doesn’t quite land on the short list of the worst he’s ever seen. For Collins, in that era of Philly fights, Watts-Hagler ranks miles behind the November 30, 1976, Spectrum fight that saw junior lightweight titleholder Alfredo Escalera escape with a split decision over Tyrone Everett.
And certainly Watts didn’t see it as a robbery.
“Watts’ career continued for a while after that,” Collins said, “and whenever you mentioned to him that you didn’t think he won the Hagler fight, he would get all pissed off.
“From his perspective, I can understand it. You know, he beat a Hall of Famer and was proud of it.”
That was the peak for Watts. He won three relatively insignificant fights afterward, then was stopped by unheralded David Love in ’77 and by future title challenger Mustafa Hamsho in ’78. On April 20, 1980, in Portland, Maine, far outside the reach of any Philly judges, Hagler got a rematch with Watts and didn’t let the ringside judges have a say, stopping Boogaloo in two.
Watts retired in 1983 with a record of 39-7-1 (22 KOs).
As for Hagler, the hard road to the title through Philadelphia continued after the setback in the first Watts fight. After a quickie win in Boston, he was back at the Spectrum eight weeks after the Watts fight to take on solid boxer-puncher Monroe – taking the fight on just two weeks’ notice after Monroe’s original opponent, Vinnie Curto, dropped out.
Monroe won a unanimous decision, the only blemish on Hagler’s record that Marvelous Marvin didn’t dispute. As Peltz noted in his book, there is no video of that Monroe-Hagler fight because a snowstorm the day of the fight prevented the hired film crew from getting there.
Six months later, in his third Spectrum fight of ’76, Hagler stopped Hart in the eighth round. He KO’d Monroe twice in ’77 – first in Boston, then in Philly – and decisioned a post-prime Briscoe in ’78. Hagler’s revenge on Watts in ’80 came two fights before he captured the middleweight championship against Alan Minter.
I asked Collins if, after watching Hagler make his Philly debut against Watts 50 years ago, he could sense he was watching a future middleweight great. Collins had sometimes shown an eye for such things, identifying Everett’s talent the first time he saw him and recommending to Peltz that he sign a local kid named Bernard Hopkins after seeing him fight once.
But in the case of Hagler, it took more than one fight.
“I thought I was looking at a good fighter, but I wasn’t predicting he’d be a Hall of Famer,” Collins said of watching Hagler against Watts. “But, after that, as he came back to Philly and kept winning and winning, it was pretty soon that I realized, hey, this guy is going to really be something.”
A six-and-a-half-year middleweight title reign and a final record of 62-3-2 (52 KOs) – a record that conceivably could have been 66-1 – confirm that, indeed, Hagler was really something.
Not bad for a guy who showed up in Philly 50 years ago with three strikes already against him, as far behind in the count as a hitter could possibly be.
Eric Raskin is a veteran boxing journalist with nearly 30 years of experience covering the sport for such outlets as BoxingScene, ESPN, Grantland, Playboy, and The Ring (where he served as managing editor for seven years). He also co-hosted The HBO Boxing Podcast, Showtime Boxing with Raskin & Mulvaney, The Interim Champion Boxing Podcast with Raskin & Mulvaney, and Ring Theory. He has won three first-place writing awards from the BWAA, for his work with The Ring, Grantland, and HBO. Outside boxing, he is the senior editor of CasinoReports and the author of 2014’s The Moneymaker Effect. He can be reached on X, BlueSky, or LinkedIn, or via email at RaskinBoxing@yahoo.com.
