By Keith Idec

Marvin Hagler has had to live with some nauseating numbers in the 30 years since suffering a controversial loss to “Sugar” Ray Leonard.

First and foremost is the absurd scorecard submitted by Mexican judge Jose Juan “Jo Jo” Guerra, who suspiciously scored a very close fight 118-110 for Leonard. Hagler also disagreed with Las Vegas’ Dave Moretti, who scored their middleweight title fight a much more reasonable 115-113 for Leonard.

Those two scores resulted in the third defeat of Hagler’s Hall of Fame career and his lone loss in 15 middleweight world title fights (13-1-1).

The longtime middleweight champion did win one important numbers game April 6, 1987 in Las Vegas. He made a significant amount more money for their famed fight than Leonard, despite that Leonard was a bigger star who was taking a risk by coming out of a nearly three-year retirement and moving up two divisions to challenge a dominant middleweight champion.

Bob Arum, who was Hagler’s promoter, explained during a recent conference call to discuss today’s 30-year anniversary of Leonard-Hagler how he guaranteed Leonard $11 million for the fight. Though a huge sum of money at that time, Arum’s payment to Leonard was $8 million less than the $19 million Hagler earned for his 12-round, split-decision defeat.

“Well, nothing is easy in boxing now, and nothing was easy then,” Arum said in reference to getting the fight made. “The two guys, once we got Marvin on board to fight – so now we knew the fight was gonna happen. And Ray had a manager/lawyer named Mike Trainer – he’s passed away – and Trainer wanted Ray to control the promotion. So he said that the fight would only happen if Top Rank, Marvin’s promoter, wasn’t involved.

“And Marvin and the Petronellis [Hagler’s handlers] were loyal guys, and they said they weren’t interested unless Top Rank promoted the fight. So as a result of that, Trainer said, ‘OK, let Arum buy us out for $11 milllion,’ which was a big sum at the time. Still is, but for that time it was enormous. I agreed to do that, and I paid Marvin on a percentage. And Marvin earned $19 million for the fight. And Ray Leonard will never, ever let me forget that.”

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.