John Mugabi - A career unfulfilled...

1976 beat Herol graham to win the junior world championships......won a silver in the 1980 olympic games.....26 wins and 26 kos before Hagler.......Gave Hagler one of his hardest battles....Became only the second guy in history to win and lose his title in the 1st round....

John Mugabi one of Boxing's greatest enigmas...."He could wipe out any of the light middles" by Marvin Hagler in 86.....

A shocking and somewhat unlucky defeat to Duane Thomas started the rot...tendencies of over eating between fights didn't help....Maybe coming from the Duff stable that was obviously intent on having him get a ko gimmick and reputation.. whilst perhaps stopping his development in the process????

Badly managed ..Who knows?? but John should've had a better career than he did....The defeat to Norris was shocking and ultimately career ending.....

Sad really because this guy seemed to start at the top and work his way down....

Loved to have seen him fight Curry at 154 or Jackson...

John Mugabi a career unfulfilled...Shame for himself and for us!!

Totally agree with the premise of the thread, less with some of the details in it. Can't accept that he was even somewhat unlucky against Thomas - thumbed, yes, but quit, pure and simple. Quite bizarre, considering his heroics against Hagler. I've often felt that the Hagler fight emptied Mugabi of all his resources. Seemed to be a shadow of what he had been before. Nowt to do with his management, which laid on chance after chance for him, even when he was severely damaged goods.

Just an example of what giving your heart and soul in one fight, only to come up short, can do to the psyche. In that respect, cf Chavez-Taylor I.

Cheers for your contribution....

Mugabi did have eye surgery the next day Captain..

good point about the psyche!!! .... Hagler could've made him but he took the loss the "wrong way.."

i agree somewhat of an enigma. think youve dressed him up as much as you possibly can mind you...

do feel you can look at him as a what if type of fighter but gets bowled over by people nowadays associating him as a bit of a hype job.

the overeating that you alluded to was a bigger problem than you made out in your article in my view, kind of similar to bowe

How do you mean... dressed him up???.....It's not a phrase I'm used to.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:How do you mean... dressed him up???.....It's not a phrase I'm used to.

sorry. meant you showed him in the best light possible. which theres nothing wrong with.

You think...I've basically just summised his career..

captain carrantuohil wrote:I've often felt that the Hagler fight emptied Mugabi of all his resources.

I think that is spot on. I also think that the fight took a lot out of Hagler who was never the same fighter after this. A contribution to the loss against Leonard.

You not think that Hagler was already on the slide when he fought Mugabi??

Not a great performance..

Very erratic guy for me.Flattered a bit by his fight against Hagler.Try and knock Marvin out and you have problems .Great scrap though
Smashed by Norris but he caught him cold a bit
I didn't see him as very top level but a tough fight for any of that excellent crop of fighters at that time.
Not sure if application was a problem or a basic lack of skill set when against the best?

Interesting fight with Norris..Think Norris was a little worried by Jackson catching him and flattening him and thought he needed to get Mugabi early..

After all Norris was slapping Jackson around..

I was never that sold on Jackson.Great puncher but limited .Graham had his number and then got stupid
I see Jackson like McClellan as a big punching bully of a fighter but limited .Nicer guy out of the ring though

I agree but he amazingly potent with them fists.....

I'm sure Norris didn't want to taste Mugabi's power..hence the quick start!

Thing is I see the Beast a bit like I see Meldrick Taylor in what happened to them. Both were on the wrong end of brutal tear-ups and Mugabi wasn't the same after that fight with Hagler even though he went on to fleetingly hold the title his other wins were mainly knocking down some cans. He collapsed out of pain and exhaustion against Haggler it was a nasty way to end the fight, like his body and head could take no further punishment and just shut down. Some men don't come back from fights like that and testament to Mugabi that he at least managed to get to being champion one day when others might have packed it in.

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:You not think that Hagler was already on the slide when he fought Mugabi??

Not a great performance..

Actually, at the time I thought it was a great performance from a man who not only wanted to win, but to impose his dominance by showing himself to be the harder man in all aspects. Hagler fought as much to break Mugabi's spirit as to win, but it also took a great amount out of him as well. I think I must come at this fight from a different perspective to everyone else, because there seemed more on the line to Hagler than the World Championship belt that night. Probably rose tinted specs on that one from my side.

We'll disagree I thought Marvin was lousy that night....Some of the punches he was caught with like the lead uppercut in the 4th were just plain amateurish...

But he did show his impregnability and that's for sure...

TRUSSMAN66 wrote:You not think that Hagler was already on the slide when he fought Mugabi??

Not a great performance..

Yes, I thought lousy that night too, but it made the fight more interesting.

If Mugabi had met Hagler around 1981-1983, Hagler would have beaten him easier.

Agreed....

But Hagler was (as I remember) never exactly that hard to hit but that hitting him was the eqivalent of punching an oak tree with a cushion.

Only vaguely remember the Beast fight and remember that they both went at it hammer and tongs with Mugabi collapsing at the end. I never thought of it as a bad performance by Hagler just a great effort by Mugabi.

Atila wrote:
If Mugabi had met Hagler around 1981-1983, Hagler would have beaten him easier.

Name: Atila
Specialist Subject: Stating the bleeding obvious.

AlexHuckerby wrote:

Atila wrote:
If Mugabi had met Hagler around 1981-1983, Hagler would have beaten him easier.

Name: Atila
Specialist Subject: Stating the bleeding obvious.

Mills Lane said he thought mugabi quit in the 11th....As I recall Duff moaned to him that "You're giving up" at the end of the 8th..

Mugabi did surprise but I still think Marvin looked past it..

I always saw him a big boxing ego. A bully that needed to believe he was invincible. And till he met Hagler, he was. After that he lacked the self belief etc. al et Hamed etc.

Personally, and despite this, I still think people on here love to slate him unreasonably.

On his first fight at MW he fought the person universally thought to be p4p best at the time. Not only that, he stood toe to toe with a "heavier" fighter and I thought largely tired.

I, for one, was very impressed with Magabi's performance and if my memory serves me correctly I remember it to be an impressive display of punching by both.

Happy, I fully agree. And it was this need to break his will that drove Hagler to fight that way. Hagler could have won with a number of other tactics, based more around boxing rather fighting, but I think he wanted to make certain that this man did not come back again. In some ways, there are comparisons with Mugaby and Lacy; everyone now over rates them, but only after they had lost in fairly brutal fights, which would have broken many a fighters heart. Very different styles of fights, I grant you, but the effect is the same.

Mugabi is overrated because he never beat anybody world class!!..