Roberto Durán Samaniego is a Panamanian former professional boxer who competed from 1968 to 2001. He held world championships in four weight classes: Lightweight, welterweight, light middleweight and middleweight. Duran also reigned as the undisputed and lineal lightweight champion and the lineal welterweight champion. He is also the second boxer to have competed over a span of five decades, the first being Jack Johnson. Durán was known as a versatile, technical brawler and pressure fighter, which earned him the nickname "Manos de Piedra" for his formidable punching power and excellent defense.
HBO World Championship Boxing is an American sports television series on premium television network HBO. It premiered on January 22, 1973 with a fight that saw George Foreman defeat Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica.
Marvelous Marvin Hagler was an American professional boxer. He competed in boxing from 1973 to 1987 and reigned as the undisputed champion of the middleweight division from 1980 to 1987, making twelve successful title defenses, all but one by knockout. Hagler also holds the highest knockout percentage of all undisputed middleweight champions at 78 percent. His undisputed middleweight championship reign of six years and seven months is the second-longest active reign of the 20th century. He holds the record for the sixth longest reign as champion in middleweight history. Nicknamed "Marvelous" and annoyed that network announcers often did not refer to him as such, Hagler legally changed his name to "Marvelous Marvin Hagler" in 1982.
Ray Charles Leonard, best known as "Sugar" Ray Leonard, is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor. Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, he competed professionally between 1977 and 1997, winning world titles in five weight classes; the lineal championship in three weight classes; as well as the undisputed welterweight championship. Leonard was part of the "Four Kings", a group of boxers who all fought each other throughout the 1980s, consisting of Leonard, Roberto Durán, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler. Leonard also won a light welterweight gold medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
The Carnival of Champions, as Don King nicknamed it, was an important boxing event held in New Orleans's Louisiana Superdome on December 3, 1982.
Julio César Chávez vs. Meldrick Taylor, also billed as Thunder Meets Lightning, was a light welterweight world championship bout held on March 17, 1990 between WBC world champion Julio César Chávez of Mexico and IBF world champion Meldrick Taylor of the United States, both at light welterweight, which was a historic event in professional boxing. It was titled "Thunder Meets Lightning" as an allusion to the punching power of Chávez and fast handspeed of Taylor. The fight was expected to be a rousing and exciting one but few, if any, could have foreseen the intense action it would produce, or the lasting fame it would earn in boxing history due to its dramatic and controversial ending that continues to be widely debated to this day. It would later be named The Ring magazine's Fight of the Year for 1990, and later the "Fight of the Decade" for the 1990s.
Thomas Hearns is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1977 to 2006. Nicknamed the "Motor City Cobra", and more famously "The Hitman", Hearns's tall, slender build and oversized arms and shoulders allowed him to move up over fifty pounds in his career and become the first boxer in history to win world titles in five weight divisions: welterweight, light middleweight, middleweight, super middleweight and light heavyweight.
John Mugabi is a Ugandan former professional boxer who competed from 1980 to 1991, and 1996 to 1999. He held the WBC super-welterweight title from 1989 to 1990, and challenged twice for world titles at middleweight, including the undisputed championship.
Richard Steele is an American retired boxing referee who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
Juan Domingo Roldán was an Argentine professional boxer, best remembered for his strong showing in the early rounds of an undisputed world championship bout against Marvelous Marvin Hagler. After flooring Hagler in the opening seconds Roldan was able to further enjoy success against the dominant middleweight champion. Hagler significantly injured Roldán's eye with the thumb of his glove. Roldán fought on, but was unable to continue and suffered a technical knockout. He retired for a couple of years before coming back with a campaign that took him to another middleweight world title bout, this time with Thomas Hearns. In an exciting contest, Roldán shook Hearns early, but succumbed to a Hearns attack in the fourth. A final world middleweight title fight with Michael Nunn resulted in a loss by KO, following which Roldán ended his professional boxing career. Nicknamed Martillo (Hammer) Roldán often featured on Ring En Español magazine.
Boxing in the 1980s was filled with important fights, events and personalities that shaped the sport. Boxing in the 1980s was shaped by many different situations, such as the continuous corporate battles between the different world sanctioning organizations, the void left by Muhammad Ali as the sport's ambassador and consequent search for a new boxing hero, the continuous presence of Don King as the sport's most famous promoter, the surge of rival promoters as Bob Arum, Butch Lewis and Murad Muhammad, and major rule changes. In 1986, Mike Tyson emerged as a fresh new face in the heavyweight division, which had seen a decline in champion quality level after Ali's retirement and, later on, after longtime WBC ruler Larry Holmes' prime. In addition, the IBF and WBO began operating.
Fulgencio Obelmejías, sometimes known also as Fully Obel is a Venezuelan former boxer, who was world super-middleweight champion.
The distance, in boxing, refers to the full number of rounds in a match. It is frequently used in the expression "going the distance", which means fighting a full bout without being knocked out.
Nigel Benn vs. Chris Eubank was a series of two professional boxing matches which took place on 18 November 1990 and 9 October 1993. Both Benn and Eubank fought at middleweight and super middleweight around the same time in 1985–97, and became rivals on both the domestic and world boxing scene. Benn won his first 22 consecutive bouts by knockout, earning the moniker 'the Dark Destroyer'. Eubank was the cocky, flamboyant upstart who began calling out Benn after his tenth bout. The rivalry grew, with both men swearing that they would knock the other man out. The British public began to demand the fight to be made.
William Lee is a former professional middleweight boxer who fought out of the fabled Kronk Gym in Detroit.
Marvin Hagler vs. Sugar Ray Leonard, billed as The Super Fight, was a professional boxing match contested on April 6, 1987 for the WBC and The Ring middleweight titles.
Marcos López, better known as Marcos Geraldo, is a Mexican former boxer who was champion at both middleweight and light heavyweight.
The Marvin Hagler vs. Roberto Duran contest was a professional boxing fight which took place on November 10, 1983, at the Caesar's Palace hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was for Hagler's universally recognized IBF, WBA and WBC world Middleweight title. Having knocked out Davey Moore in eight rounds on the previous June 16th to win his third divisional world championship, the WBA world Junior Middleweight one, Duran, a Panamanian, was attempting to become the first four division world champion in boxing history. Hagler, meanwhile, had beaten Alan Minter by third round technical knockout in September of 1980 to win the undisputed world Middleweight title, and, after proposed "super-fight" title defenses against Sugar Ray Leonard and Thomas Hearns failed to take place, was making the eighth defense of that championship, his seven previous defenses all ending in knockout wins for the American champion.
Thomas Hearns vs. Juan Roldán was a professional boxing match contested on October 29, 1987, for the vacant WBC middleweight title.
The Michael Dokes vs. Mike Weaver or, alternately, Mike Weaver vs. Michael Dokes, boxing fights were a pair of fights that occurred in 1982 and 1983 and were for the World Boxing Association's world Heavyweight title. Both fights were considered controversial due to a separate set of situations. They are both among the most widely spoken about heavyweight boxing contests of the 1980s.
