Hagler beat Durán over 15 rounds and Hearns in three

In November 1982 Sugar Ray Leonard stood in a ring at the Baltimore Civic Center and retired. He had had surgery in May to repair a detached retina, and said his vision was back to normal. "I didn't feel the electricity," he said. Marvin Hagler was there. He had been invited. "He thought the announcement was going to take place," said Leonard's publicist, Charlie Brotman. Leonard said a fight between them "would be one of the greatest fights in boxing history. But that unfortunately won't happen."

"He's looking right at me," Hagler said years later, "and then that's when he came out with that, 'It will never happen.' I was like, Who does this guy think he is?"

The man who waited

Hagler was born in Newark, New Jersey. After the 1967 riots the tenement his family lived in was burned, and his mother moved them to Brockton, Massachusetts. There he walked into a gym run by two brothers, Pat and Goody Petronelli, who trained and managed him for the rest of his career. They also gave him work with their construction company at $3 an hour, and he borrowed 50 cents a day from them to buy a sandwich.

He won the national amateur title in 1973 and turned professional the same year. He lost early on to Bobby Watts and Willie Monroe and beat both of them later, but his awkward southpaw style made him a man other fighters avoided. Joe Frazier summed up his problem for him: "You have three strikes against you: you're black, you're southpaw and you're good."

The Petronellis joined forces with the promoter Bob Arum. In November 1979 Hagler got his first title shot, against Vito Antuofermo, and came away with a draw. "Marvin probably won 11 of the 15 rounds," said his assistant trainer, Roger "Pit" Perron. The next year he took the title from Alan Minter at Wembley. By 1983 he held the WBA, WBC and IBF belts, and in 1982 he had changed his name by law to Marvelous Marvin Hagler. As for Leonard, Perron put it simply: "Marvin hated Ray Leonard. He hated him!"

Durán comes back

Roberto Durán had quit against Leonard in New Orleans in November 1980 and said he was finished. He wasn't. In January 1982 he lost a 15-round decision to Wilfred Benítez for the WBC light-middleweight title, and that September Kirkland Laing beat him on a split decision in Detroit. Then he signed with Arum, and in January 1983 he stopped Pipino Cuevas in four rounds in Los Angeles. "Forget about those last few fights before Cuevas," he said. "I'm not the same person."

On 16 June 1983, his 32nd birthday, he challenged Davey Moore for the WBA light-middleweight title at Madison Square Garden. Moore was 24, unbeaten in 12 fights, taller and longer in the reach, and the 5–2 favourite.

In the first round Durán's thumb caught Moore in the right eye. By the fourth it was nearly shut. Durán put him down in the seventh, and the fight was stopped in the eighth. The crowd sang "Happy Birthday". It was Durán's third world title at a third weight, and it earned him Hagler.

Thirteen rounds and two more

They met at Caesars Palace on 10 November 1983 for the undisputed middleweight title, over 15 rounds. Durán was a 4-to-1 underdog.

Durán boxed from the outside and waited. "I fought him at half-distance," he said afterwards. "I was waiting for him to unload so I could score on him. Whichever hand he unloaded, I was ready to counter." In the fifth he hurt his right hand on Hagler's forehead and felt it every time he landed it after that. Hagler stayed careful.

In the 12th, Sports Illustrated reported, Durán landed hard straight rights, and just before the bell blood trickled from Hagler's swollen left eye as Durán pointed at his own chin and said: "Hit me! Hit me!"

After 13 rounds Hagler was not ahead on any of the three scorecards. In the corner Goody Petronelli told him: "I want a strong 14th and 15th. You can't make this fight close. You've got to win these last two rounds."

Hagler won them. He battered a tired Durán for the last six minutes and hurt him in the 15th, and took a unanimous decision. It was the first time one of his title defences had gone the distance.

Hagler defended his caution. "I'm not a fool either, going in to get hit," he said. "You don't barrel in there on a guy like Roberto Duran. Why take unnecessary punishment unless you have to? I'd been effective and was winning the fight." Sports Illustrated headlined its report "Marvelous Was Something Less Than Marvelous", and judged that Durán had come out of it with his reputation enhanced and Hagler with his image diminished.

Leonard tries again

In May 1984 Leonard came back against Kevin Howard in Worcester, Massachusetts. Sports Illustrated called Hagler "the magnet that pulled Leonard back into the ring". Howard put Leonard down in the fourth, the first knockdown of his professional career. Leonard won in the ninth and retired again on the spot. "As of this moment I am retired," he said. "There's no sense in fooling myself or anyone else. It's just not there."

Hearns and Durán

Thomas Hearns had won six fights in a row since losing to Leonard in 1981. In December 1982 he beat Benítez in New Orleans for the WBC light-middleweight title, and on 15 June 1984 he defended it against Durán at Caesars Palace. Hearns was the 2-to-1 favourite. Hearns said: "The Hitman is back and Duran will fall in two."

He was right. Hearns knocked Durán down twice in the first round, and at the end of it Durán went to a neutral corner and had to be fetched back to his own. In the second a right hand put him on his face, and the referee, Carlos Padilla, stopped it without a count. Nobody had knocked Durán out before.

"I challenge Marvin Hagler," Hearns said. "I can see him in my mind now, shaking like a leaf on a tree."

The build-up

The two had been matched before. A fight in 1982 was called off because of an injury to Hearns's right hand. "He started complaining about his little baby pinkie," Hagler said.

This time it happened. They toured the country to sell it: 26 cities, Hagler remembered, and "every day we looked at each other's face". In Detroit Hearns said: "Come April 15 -- in three rounds -- I will be the greatest." The next day, in St Louis, Hagler answered: "I feel almost the same way but when the smoke clears -- because I'm coming out smokin' -- it'll be my hands that's going to be raised."

Hagler was 30 and 60–2–2. Hearns was 26 and 40–1, and at 78in had three inches more reach. Leonard was on HBO's commentary team, alongside Barry Tompkins and Larry Merchant.

Eight minutes

They fought on 15 April 1985 in the outdoor arena at Caesars Palace in front of 15,088 people, with a strong wind blowing through Las Vegas. Hagler came straight at Hearns, and Hearns stood his ground. Hearns landed a right hand that stunned Hagler for a moment, and both men traded their heaviest punches with little thought for defence. A cut opened on Hagler's forehead above his right eye. "This is still only the first round!" said Tompkins on HBO. By the computer count 165 punches were thrown in it, 82 by Hagler and 83 by Hearns, and by the bell Hearns was the one wobbling. The Ring named it the round of the year.

At some point in the fight Hearns broke his right hand. In the second he moved on unsteady legs. "I don't like the way Tommy's moving," Leonard said on air, "a little rubbery-legged."

In the third the blood was coming from Hagler's forehead, and the referee, Richard Steele, stopped the action so that the commission's chief physician, Dr Donald Romeo, could look at it. "Can you see all right?" Romeo asked. "No problem," said Hagler. "I ain't missing him, am I?" Romeo let him go on.

Then a right to the side of the head sent Hearns backwards across the ring, and more rights followed. Hearns fell onto Hagler's shoulder and slid down his body to the floor. He got up, but Steele had seen enough. Hearns's knees were wobbly and his eyes glazed, the referee said. "I wasn't asking questions. I knew he'd had enough." Hearns had to be carried back to his corner, and it was several minutes before he could stand on his own.

Afterwards

Hagler needed four stitches. "When I see blood, I become a bull," he said.

Hearns, who stood to bank at least $5.4 million, went to Hagler's dressing room. "We made a lot of money, but we gave them a good show," he said. Of Hagler he also said: "A man doesn't hold the title for [five] years for nothing. He showed me he is a great champion."

Donald Curry, on ITV, blamed Hearns's tactics. "Tommy fought the wrong fight," he said. "He got into a dogfight with Marvin and he lost." The Ring made it the fight of the year.

Hagler had beaten Durán and Hearns. "When I first retired in '82," Leonard said later, "that's when I started to feel something missing from my legacy. It was Hagler." On 6 April 1987, at Caesars Palace, he got into the ring with him.