MONZON AND HAGLER ; Why Did They Never Move up ?

[TheEvilSaint]

move up and fight who? a bunch of punks from the UK who do nothing but fight each other and have JUYJUY slobber all over their nuts for it?

MW was where the big names and big paydays were. they made the right choice to stay at 160.

[grayfist]

move up and fight who? a bunch of punks from the UK who do nothing but fight each other and have JUYJUY slobber all over their nuts for it?

MW was where the big names and big paydays were. they made the right choice to stay at 160.

Amen. The Monzon and Hagler middleweight divisions were more glamorous than their lightheavyweight contemporaries. By 1975-76, about the time when Monzon should have moved up in weight, Bob Foster has had his failed bid vs. Ali and had settled down to the Bill Hardneys, Al Boldens, Harold Carters and Bob Hazeltons back at LightHeavy and John Conteh was defending against the Lonnie Bennets and Len Hutchinses, and one semi-memorable name: Yaqui Lopez. It was not until some two years after Monzon retired (1977) at the age of less than a month short of 35 and having tucked away a record of 100 fights that included meetings with Nino Benevenuti, Emile Griffith, Jose Napoles, Rodrigo Valdez, that the likes of Mathew Saad Muhammad and Dwight Quawi started building names for themselves at Lightheavyweight.

If there would have been a lucratice move to LighHeavy for Monzon, it would have been via Victor Galindez of the WBA, but back in 75-76, Galindez, though a champ, was not exactly highly thought of as HOFame material, though, many later lists of All-Time great Lightheavies include him in the top 20.

By the way when Monzon retired, the WBC LightHeavyeweight champ was a guy named Miguel Angel Cuello who got the title for winning over a fella named Jesse Burnet. Cuello held the title for six months, then lost it to ANate Parlov and was never heard from again.