Who Should Rank Higher, Hagler or Hearns?

[bojangles1987]

This is not an easy question at all. Hearns had a much longer career spanning many divisions, whereas Hagler's career is only at middleweight. Because of the division climbing, I'd give the edge to Hearns as far as ATG rankings, though Hagler is the better fighter.

[katsidis]

I gotta say hearns, but as a big hearns fan I'm pretty biased

[StarshipTrooper]

I personally rate dominating one weight class over division jumping and grabbing belts.

Poet

[Kid McCoy]

Good post... Hearns was voted by the IBHOF as the No1 154lb fighter of all time..

both fighters performances against Ray Leonard put Hearns ahead of Hagler and its folly to claim Hagler was old otherwise we then bring into account Hearns breaking his right-hand in the opening round against Hagler,

Hagler struggled with Duran beating him by one point on all judges scorecards after rallying to win the final round, Hearns `Bombed-out`Duran in less than 2rds, Haglers performance against Juan Roldan & Marcos Geraldo are poor compared to how Hearns dealt with those 2 fighters so Hearns breaking his right-hand in the opening round is a huge issue with Hagler never wanting to face Hearns in a rematch.

Hearns ranks as the greater of the two in my opinion.

Hearns suffered an in-fight injury after hitting an opponent who happened to have a hard head. It's no different to Cooper getting cut against Ali or Ali having his jaw broken by Norton. It's boxing and injuries happen. It certainly is not the same as a fighter being old before he entered the ring.

Leonard was beaten by Duran, who lost decisively to Hagler, (in spite of the dodgy scoring, there's no way Duran won more than 5 rounds) and was KO'd in two by Hearns. By your reckoning that makes them better than Leonard, right?

As for rematches, I trust you're equally critical of Ray Leonard for his failure to give timely to rematches to Hearns, Duran and Hagler.

I personally rate dominating one weight class over division jumping and grabbing belts.

Poet

I agree. Carlos Monzon and Archie Moore turning back all pretenders to their one title ranks over Floyd Mayweather with his 5 cherry-picked WBC belts.

[BennyST]

I personally rate dominating one weight class over division jumping and grabbing belts.

Poet

I usually would too, but in this case it hard. Hearns dominated WW, apart from Leonard and he also dominated 154 for the time he was there but he faced the best at each weight class he was at and fought many fights in each.

[StarshipTrooper]

I usually would too, but in this case it hard. Hearns dominated WW, apart from Leonard and he also dominated 154 for the time he was there but he faced the best at each weight class he was at and fought many fights in each.

I mean REAL weight classes not bogus "Junior" and "Super" divisions.

Poet