{"id":246826,"date":"2025-11-06T06:58:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T06:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/246826\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T06:58:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T06:58:08","slug":"former-undisputed-world-champion-who-faced-marvin-hagler-twice-says-one-man-hit-harder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/246826\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Undisputed World Champion Who Faced Marvin Hagler Twice Says One Man Hit Harder"},"content":{"rendered":"

A former undisputed middleweight champion and rival of Marvin Hagler<\/a> has revealed the one fighter who hit harder than the American great.<\/p>\n

Commended for being one of the greatest middleweights of all time, Hagler dominated the division during the 1980s where he reigned as the undisputed champion between 1980 and 1987.<\/p>\n

The Newark-native made no less than twelve successful defences of his crown during this period, defeating the likes of John Mugabi, Thomas \u2018The Hitman\u2019 Hearns and Roberto Duran along the way.<\/p>\n

Hagler\u2019s reign eventually came to an end when he suffered the third defeat of his career to countryman Sugar Ray Leonard in April 1987<\/a>, in what would prove to be the 67th and final ring appearance of his decorated tenure.<\/p>\n

One man who has more experience than most in sharing the ring with Hagler is former undisputed world middleweight champion Vito Antuofermo, who faced \u2018Marvelous\u2019 in 1979 and 1981 respectively.<\/p>\n

Their first meeting ended in a split decision draw, before Hagler then claimed a fourth round retirement win over Antuofermo in the rematch.<\/p>\n

Despite getting stopped by Hagler, Antuofermo surprisingly overlooked his rival when he was asked to reveal the biggest puncher that he ever faced, as he revealed in a resurfaced interview with Boxing News.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEugene \u201cCyclone\u201d Hart of Philadelphia was the hardest puncher I ever fought. He knocked a lot of guys out. He destroyed Sugar Ray Seales and had Hagler in trouble. He hurt me in the third and fourth rounds but then. I ended up knocking him out. After we fought I knew that if I can take this guy\u2019s punch nobody is going to be able to knock me out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Italian star Antuofermo beat Hart by fifth round stoppage back in March 1977 in what was the penultimate fight of the American\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

Hart also took on Hagler in the fight prior, suffering an eighth round retirement defeat, as his final record stood at 30 wins, 9 losses, 1 draw and 1 no contest, but 28 wins by knockout, proving exactly why Antuofermo viewed him as such a big puncher.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former undisputed middleweight champion and rival of Marvin Hagler has revealed the one fighter who hit harder…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246827,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-246826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246826\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}