For Love of a Smelly Art

By Tom Callahan

In the latest of the last of the big fights, Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns argued vehemently for and against boxing, proving both positions. It was horrible and magnificent. The first round is being called the best ever, though there have been a few fights before and Dempsey-Firpo was well received in 1923. Even retreating, Hearns slugged boldly. Hagler was a monster. He swears, "I love the boxing game like a little boy," though this was far from the effect. "I love the smell," he says, even of his own blood, diluting his sweat like a hemorrhage in a sink, rendering his face a red rage.

For eight minutes and one second in all, the first three minutes especially, they flurried in a slaughter house. Immediately Hagler's forehead was opened and Hearns' right hand was crushed, injuries not exactly unrelated. Only to Hagler did the first round seem brief. "I hated to hear that bell ring." He could make out the shouts from Hearns' corner to box, box, box. "I wanted him to continue fighting me."

Like Sugar Ray Leonard against Roberto Duran, Hearns selected masculinity for a style, if the choice was his. "I started out slugging because I had to, it was there," he insists. "Marvin started running in. I had to protect myself." Like Duran, Hearns learned the leaden lesson of moving a few pounds up, in his case from 154 lbs. to 160, where men no longer fall apart when you hit them.

A world champion since 1980 but a middleweight for 14 years, Hagler is a 160-lb. fighter of old, physically and spiritually. There had been some doubt about the latter, a result of Hagler's own occasional caution. But now nine years removed from his two losses in 65 fights, to Philadelphians Willie ("the Worm") Monroe and Bobby ("Boogaloo") Watts, the champion has finally turned the public corner at 30, after coming down that bravest street in boxing, where Stanley Ketchel, Harry Greb, Tony Zale, Rocky Graziano, Jake LaMotta, Sugar Ray Robinson and all the veterans of middleweight wars hang out. The usual lopsided faces congregated again last week in Las Vegas, not just for the big fight but for LaMotta's sixth wedding. Jake is 0 and 5. In the middle of the ceremony at Joey Maxim's place on the gambling strip, a telephone rang but a riot was averted. "What round is it?" LaMotta joked. Someone answered, "Sixth."

In their second round, Hagler pressed the advantage of his deeper strength and resolve against Hearns' greater height and reach until Tommy teetered simply from lack of leverage. Trying to lean far enough away from Hagler to hook him, Hearns sent himself sprawling a couple of times. Hagler punched and pushed him to the ropes. During the final training, Hearns had displayed himself in a casino ballroom complete with aerobic girls, while Hagler locked the door at Johnny Tocco's downtown gym. "I wanted to be able to smell a gymnasium," he explained, "to get back to what got me where I was." Their relative courses showed in the second round, which ended in a frightful Hagler body barrage that hinted the third of the scheduled twelve would be the last.

Before it was over for Hearns, it was almost ended for Hagler. When Referee Richard Steele paused to have the ringside physician re-examine the champion's wound, a bolt of fear struck the Petronelli brothers in Hagler's corner. But the doctor's brisk finding was that Marvin could see all right, and Goody Petronelli felt a strange sensation of calm. He and Pat first encountered Hagler when he walked softly into their gym in Brockton, Mass., as a 16-year-old, a child of Newark who happened to find himself living in Rocky Marciano's home town. They gave him a job with their construction company and a place to dream on the side. "Rocky and I grew up five miles apart. He was going to go in with us on the gym," says Goody, whose own nose is unmistakably bent. "I thought of him when Marvin was bleeding, and it looked like they might stop it, and they didn't. I knew the knockout was coming then. He fought like Rocky this time."

Technically, it was not a knockout. In a daze, Hearns had blithely walked away from a line of right hands that double-crossed him and smashed him to the ground. At Steele's count of "nine," Hearns was approximately erect, but the referee had a grace of sense. As Hagler was hoisted on a number of shoulders, Hearns was carried across the ring like a bride across the threshold by one grim man in formal dress with a boutonniere in his lapel. It was a relief to see Hearns walking even unsteadily later, though he bore scarcely a recognizable resemblance to the person who had entered the ring. His grin was continuous and worrisomely inappropriate--wider than chagrin--and his speech was more deliberate than distinct. His thoughts were slower still. During the interviews, bulb-nosed old Press Agent Irving Rudd hovered at Hearns' ear like Jiminy Cricket, to keep his answers on course.

"Well, what can I say? I'm just glad I'm in great physical condition. I'm not hurt. I thank the Lord. I'm so sorry once again." This was a reference to his only other defeat in 42 matches, 14 fierce rounds against Leonard in 1981. Whatever was removed from him in that fight, more was taken out in this. "It hurts. That's another one staring me in the face." But he praised Hagler--"The man showed his greatness"--and held out hope for himself at 26. "This is not the end for me. I'm a winner." In a glut of divisions, he yet holds a superwelterweight title--"nothing to cry over," as Hagler said, though not much occasion for joy. The contemporary champions introduced before the fight heard fewer cheers of recognition than the ancients, and all of their ovations were drowned out by the longing affection for Muhammad Ali, moon-faced and subdued. "Great fight," he murmured later, "like Joe Frazier."

A bit bubble-eyed but eschewing dark glasses, Hagler shrugged, "I'm used to bumps and bruises. I love a good fight." His daughter Charelle, 3, observed, "Daddy, you got a boo-boo, huh?" He laughed at that. "She's so honest." So is he, brutally. "Tommy was very cocky, and I had something for him. This is what you call a sweet victory. I wanted to do it better than Leonard. Tommy predicted the third round: that was the prize. I done did what I had to do. I'm not a politician. I'm a fighter." The next morning, touching the stitch line above his nose, Hagler said, "I'm not scared of blood. Matter of fact, it turns me on sometimes. The monster comes out." He would like to devour someone else before the year is over, for another $5 million to $8 million or much less. An opponent is the problem. "Let's do it again," Hearns offered vaguely, meaning in the distant future. The Detroiter needs some time to recall he is a boxer, and the conqueror must be allowed some time to grow old. "I'm at the top of my game, and I don't see any other fighter out there," said Hagler, Marvelous no longer just by court decree. "I don't see another one. I'm 'boxing' right now."

Boxing right now is punch-drunk legends, venal managers, scheming promoters, calloused writers, hopeless under-cards, injured preliminary boys, several champions per myriad division and one middleweight monster. Also, lately, hectoring medical associations and posturing legislators. Watching a fight like last week's in both horror and appreciation, finding equal wonder in savagery and science, one is amazed and a little ashamed that there has always been a class poor enough for this uncivilized business, this simplest sport or this purest art. What can you call it? Jake LaMotta, still married, called it "the best three rounds of fighting I ever seen ." --By Tom Callahan