Why No More Fifteen Round Fights?
How Twelve Rounds Helped Ray Leonard Beat Marvin Hagler
Dec 11, 2008
When the Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Marvin Hagler middleweight championship fight was signed in 1987, much was made of Leonard's insistence on limiting the fight to 12 rounds, but Leonard / Hagler was hardly pioneering in that sense. The boxing world started changing several years earlier.
In 1982, Duk Koo Kim died from brain trauma sustained in the ring. This epic battle between Kim and WBA champion Ray “Boom Boom” Mancini ended when a tough, but rapidly weakening, Kim was stopped in the fourteenth round and died four days later. Kim wasn’t the first man to die from ring injuries, but his bout had the distinction of being televised. A great lever had been thrown and the gears of change creaked into motion.
WBC Investigates Brain Injury in the Ring
The WBC had already begun investigating the neurological effects of 15 round bouts and theorized that fatigue, along with dehydration, had the greatest effect on a fighter between rounds 13 and 15. Shortly after Kim’s death, the WBC officially reduced its championship bouts from 15 to 12 rounds.
Along with that significant, if questionable revision, the WBC also made some real progress in the monitoring and maintenance of fighter safety. Pre-fight electroencephalograms and a mandatory standing eight count for boxers who had been knocked down were among such improvements.
Nearly lost in the whirlwind of post-Mancini vs. Kim, was the effect of Kim dehydrating himself of several pounds before the bout in order to make the 135 lb weight limit. Without enough cerebral-spinal fluid surrounding his brain, there was little natural protection from Mancini’s blows. The truth is, there is no way to know if the fatal damage had occurred before twelve rounds or after, but that Kim was dehydrated is indisputable.
The Last Fifteen Round Fight
The last 15 round fight in history was Jorge Paez’s decision over Calvin Grove for the IBF featherweight title in 1989, but 15 round fights had already become rare by the time Hagler vs. Leonard took place two years earlier.
As one of the conditions of accepting the fight, Leonard proposed that the contest be limited to 12 rounds. Hagler agreed, although it wasn’t as deep a concession as some might have thought. Of Hagler’s last five fights, only one had been scheduled for 15 rounds. That, against Mustafa Hamsho in 1984.
In any event, Leonard wasn’t concerned about his brain; it was his legs he worried about. He knew that he would have to employ a run and gun strategy against the maniacally conditioned, more powerful Hagler if he were to have any hope of victory. As it was, Leonard fought again, retired, and unretired through a series of high profile, but essentially meaningless fights. Hagler, disgusted with the judges decision, moved to Italy and made a series action of movies there.
What would have happened had their fight gone 15 rounds?
At the end of 12 rounds, Sugar ray Leonard was completely spent. One could argue that if the fight were 15 rounds he would have paced himself for the longer distance, but in doing so he would have found the rounds much harder to win with his lateral movement and end-of-round flurries.
Hagler would have continued to press and his superior conditioning would have taken over in rounds 13 through 15, earning him a split decision.
The consequences of a Hagler victory? Sugar Ray Leonard would have retired slightly less famous, “The Contender” would never have happened, and Marvelous Marvin Hagler wouldn’t have his funny Italian accent.
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