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Marvin Hagler still looks fighting fit at 60. Photo: K.Y. Cheng

Time to let the hate for Mayweather flow, legend Marvelous Marvin Hagler tells Pacquiao

Middleweight star knows exactly what fighters are going through, having starred in a series of super-fights in the 80s

Boxing legend Marvelous Marvin Hagler knows exactly what Manny Pacquiao is going through as he prepares to take on Floyd Mayweather – and he says now’s the time for the Filipino star to let the hate flow through him.

Hagler, the undisputed middleweight champion for six years and seven months in the 80s, knows a thing or two about this kind of ‘Super Fight’, having taken on all-comers – most famously Roberto Duran, Thomas Hearns and Sugar Ray Leonard - during his reign.

Having watched with frustration, like all boxing fans, as Mayweather ducked Pacquiao over the last few years, he still can’t quite believe it’s going to happen – and nor can he pick a winner.

But Hagler, whose slogan was ‘Destruct and Destroy’ and was the subject of a New York Times feature titled ‘Boxing’s Angry Man’ in the build-up to his showdown with Leonard, says Pacquaio needs to bring an ice-cool hatred of Mayweather into the ring – not unfocused rage, but that clinical determination to destroy.

“It’s a 24 hour job,” he says of the difference between preparing for a super-fight like this and a run-of-the-mill bout. “You have to be prepared physically and mentally.

“You can’t really go in there with any type of anger, but for me every time when I got up on stage I would start to hate the guy – normally it would build up [in the weeks before] and this would be the time to start to build up your hatred towards your opponent – I know that they don’t like each other right now.

“I think I’m not sure whether it’s going to happen until they actually step in the ring, I think the whole world feels the same,” added Hagler, who was in Hong Kong as an ambassador with the Laureus Sports Foundation and local charity Operation Breakthrough for a conference on the impact sport can have on young lives.
I think it was about time that it happened, because this was really about the only big fight left in the world today ... we need some more excitement like this to wake up the boxing world
Marvelous Marvin Hagler

“I can’t say who’s going to win, I think it’s going to be a strategy type of fight – both fighters are very equipped with punching power, speed and skills so it’s going to be really a fight that you have to stay on your seat – because this fight could end early, it could go either way.”

Hagler’s savage brawl against Hearns in April 1985 is widely regarded as one of the greatest of all time, even though it lasted less than three rounds, while his showdown with Sugar Ray in 1987, when he lost a controversial decision on points, is rated not far behind. Early in his career, he changed his name by deed poll to Marvelous to force commentators to use his nickname, but by the time he retired he had nothing to prove.

There’s been too few bouts of similar magnitude since. Though Hagler, now 60 but still a fearsome sight, says he can’t choose between the two, he’s just glad for the sake of boxing that the pair will finally get it on in Las Vegas in May.

“To be honest I think if the fight was on this side [of the world] I’d have to go with Pacquiao, but he has a big following in America too, people have embraced him pretty well. I think we’re just looking for a real tough fight and a good fight.

“I think it was about time that it happened, because this was really about the only big fight left in the world today – the fact that boxing is not the way that it used to be, we need some more excitement like this to wake up the boxing world.

“My era it was a different type of challenge out there all these guys were able to take my place – I was champion, I was the one that said, ‘Let’s do it,’ without ducking anybody, giving them all the opportunity to dethone me and never knowing these fights would be the fights of the centuries.

“None of those fights were easy for me, so I can imagine what’s probably going through the minds of Mayweather and Pacquiao – because this will be the biggest purse and the biggest fight of their life.”

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