Players stress importance of unity and describe how war affects their preparations for the tournament
Latest editorial
Simply Marvellous
Middleweight champion Marvin Hagler celebrates his title with his manager, Pat Petronelli, and co-manager, Goody Petronelli, in Las Vegas, in April 1985
THE 1970s were coming to a close when Bob Arum, fresh off promoting a pair of fights between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks, checked his mail one morning to find a letter from two Massachusetts politicians with the kind of power he knew it would be unwise to ignore.
House speaker Tip O’Neill and Senator Ted Kennedy had one simple question for Arum: Why wasn’t their fighter — a local favourite enjoying a modicum of success — being given a chance to fight the best middleweights in the world?
They also had an implied threat: If Marvin (the Marvellous was yet to come) Hagler wasn’t given a chance to prove himself they would form a joint House-Senate panel to look into the reasons why — and might just investigate a lot of other shady things that went on in the world of boxing.
Similar stories
TONY FOX reports from a commemoration of the legendary Battle of Jarama in which four Stockton-on-Tees volunteers fell
A WWI hero, renowned ornithologist, medical doctor, trade union organiser and founder member of the Communist Party of Great Britain all rolled in one. MAT COWARD tells the story of a life so improbable it was once dismissed as fiction
‘Honest’ Tom Wharton’s 1682 drunken rampage through St Mary’s church haunted his political career, but his satirical song Lillibullero helped topple Catholic James II during the Glorious Revolution, writes MAT COWARD
