Jim Lampley

He figured out how to flurry at the end of the rounds and make a big impression in the judges' eyes.

That was a very close fight, but that fight always bothered me.

And one of the things that bothered me is I felt like there were moments where Hagler could have turned it up and didn't.

And then when he retired after that fight and went to Italy and became a giant movie star in Italy, the conspiratorial part of my brain was always like, was that like one of those deals where...

where everybody assumed that Hagler was going to win.

Hagler was a destroyer.

Hagler had knocked out Tommy Hearns.

Hagler had beaten everybody in the division, knocked out Mugabe.

He was the man, you know?

Well, you know, he had accomplished so much and also his...

training camps were the stuff of legend.

I mean, he would spar a hundred rounds a week sometimes, which is just insane.

Hagler was a monster.

I mean, his conditioning and his drive and his will and his discipline, he was a monster.

He would scare the shit out of everybody just from his work ethic.

I remember I told the story there was a news piece when he was training on the Cape and it was in the middle of the winter and he was fighting Mustafa Hampshire and he was running down the sand dunes screaming war.

With combat boots on in the winter.

And I remember thinking, war, war.

Because you think you're disciplined.

You think you're driven.