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, as well as reigns 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 of "Mano de Piedra" for his formidable punching power and excellent defense.
Wilfredo Gómez Rivera, sometimes referred to as Bazooka Gómez, is a Puerto Rican former professional boxer and three-time world champion. He is frequently mentioned among the best Puerto Rican boxers of all time by sports journalists and analysts, along with Félix Trinidad, Miguel Cotto, Wilfred Benítez, Esteban De Jesús, Edwin Rosario, and Carlos Ortíz.
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.
Salvador "Sal" Sánchez Narváez was a Mexican professional boxer born in the town of Santiago Tianguistenco, Estado de México. Sanchez was the WBC and lineal featherweight champion from 1980 to 1982. Many of his contemporaries as well as boxing writers believe that had it not been for his premature death, Sánchez could have gone on to become the greatest featherweight boxer of all time. Sánchez died on August 12, 1982 in a car accident from Querétaro to San Luis Potosí. He is also the uncle of Salvador Sánchez II.
Marvelous Marvin Hagler was an American professional boxer and film actor. 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 last 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 World Boxing Council (WBC) is an international professional boxing organization. It is among the four major organizations which sanction professional boxing bouts, alongside the World Boxing Association (WBA), International Boxing Federation (IBF) and World Boxing Organization (WBO).
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.
Richard Steele is an American retired boxing referee who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame.
A Century of Boxing Greats: Inside the Ring with the Hundred Best Boxers is a book about boxing, written by Patrick Myler and published in England in 1997 by Robson Books. Printed in Great Britain by St. Edmundsdurry Press, in Suffolk, and released in 1998 in the United States by Robson/Parkwest Publications in New York City, the book has the Library of Congress catalog card number 97-74450. Hardcover: ISBN 1-86105-134-4. Softcover: ISBN 1-86105-258-8.
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.
Marvelous Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns, was a world middleweight championship boxing match between undisputed champion Marvelous Marvin Hagler and challenger Thomas Hearns, the WBC super welterweight champion, who had gone up in weight for the bout. Won by Hagler by third-round knockout, the fight is considered to be the three greatest rounds in boxing history, due to its constant action, drama, and violent back-and-forth exchanges.
Henry William Gibbs OBE was an English boxing referee and judge.
Marcos López, better known as Marcos Geraldo, is a retired Mexican boxer who was Mexican champion at both middleweight and light heavyweight.
Ralph "Rocky" Fratto, "The Pride of Geneva", is an American former professional boxer from Geneva, New York. Fratto was rated as the No. 1 Junior Middleweight in the United States by the USBA, and the second best Junior Middleweight in the world by the WBA. On April 25, 1981 Fratto became the North American Champion when he won the NABF Super Welterweight title, by defeating Rocky Mosley Jr. in Rochester, New York. Mosley was rated as the 4th best Junior Middleweight in the world by Ring Magazine prior to the fight. Ring Magazine crowned Fratto as the U.S. Junior Middleweight Champion in 1981 and 1982.
Arturo Leon is a Mexican-American former boxer from Arizona, United States. He was a junior lightweight who once challenged Alexis Arguello for the Nicaraguan's World Boxing Council's world Junior Lightweight title, losing by 15 round unanimous decision.
Anthony Perez was an American boxing referee and judge of Puerto Rican descent. During his career, he refereed many major boxing fights and participated in a number of boxing related documentaries.
Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Terry Norris was a professional boxing match contested on February 9, 1991, for the WBC super welterweight title.
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.
