By Walter Elliott
NEWARK – Searching for details on Marvin Hagler’s boyhood here, for “Local Talk,” may be as elusive as his opponents’ looking for a weakness to the late middleweight boxer’s defenses.
Marvelous Marvin Hagler, 66, who suddenly died in his Bartlett, N.H. home March 13, was among four outstanding professional prizefighters of the 1970s and 80s.
Hagler, who legally added “Marvelous” to his name in 1982, amassed a 62-win (including 52 knockouts), three-loss and two-draw while a professional boxer 1973-87. He reigned as the undisputed united middleweight champion of the world for six and a half years, defending his title 12 times before losing to Sugar Ray Leonard in a controversial split decision at Caesar’s Palace – Las Vegas on April 6, 1987.
Hagler, whose career started from Brockton, Mass. in 1969, developed his unorthodox left-hand stance while an amateur boxer 1969-72. His 55-1 record came through the Golden Gloves and the U.S. National Championships.
It was during his amateur career where he began to get his “Marvelous” nickname – and where he added two years onto his May 23, 1954 birthdate.
Hagler may have lied about his age for a while but he was matter of fact in being from Newark. The 1993 International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee noticed longtime boxing writer and Newarker Jerry Izenberg prior to his 2016 induction and whispered, “So you finally made it, Homeboy.”
Marvin Nathaniel Sims was born to Robert Sims and Ida Mae Hagler. He would become the oldest of six children, including boxer Robbie Sims, while living here in the Central Ward.
Several Newark Facebook page posters remember being classmates with Hagler while in the Miller Elementary School. One poster said he used “Green” as his last name.
It turns out that Sims never married I.M. Hagler and left the family when the children were young. This also explains in part why finding a Hagler address in 1954-67 Newark real estate and telephone directories were thwarted.
That includes the address of the apartment building or “tenement” that most biographies said was damaged or all but burned down during the July 1967 riots/rebellion/social disturbance. The trashing of their home was what led I.M. Hagler moving herself and her children to Brocton.
Before leaving Newark, there is a line in the “Washington Post” obituary where “a Newark social worker gave Hagler his first taste of boxing.”
By “first taste,” did the social worker take Marvin to a bout in Newark or New York’s Madison Square Garden? The social worker would take him out to a Newark gym or boxing club – which would give credence to FB posters saying he went to the South Ward Boys and Girls Club and/or The Dukers BC.
Most, if not all Hagler biographies and tributes have Marvin coming to Goody and Pat Petronelli’s boxing gym in Brockton. He had just dropped out of the ninth grade was working on construction jobs when a lock boxer had roughed him up the week before.
Hagler would beat that boxer in the ring later on. The Petronellis also took Robbie Sims under his wing.
Hagler, whose life apparently did not include a rear-view mirror, said he had nothing more to prove in boxing. He retired first to Italy, where he was an actor in contemporary spaghetti westerns and as a boxing commentator on British television. He used to travel between homes in Milan and Bartlett, N.H.
Marvelous and Bertha Hagler had five children before they divorced in 1990. He had married Kay in 2020 – who broke news of her husband’s death on the Marvin Hagler Fan Club website.
Kay Hagler, on March 15, also dispelled a rumor that Marvelous had died from COVID or its complications.
“Marvin hated funerals so therefore there will be no funerals or church celebrations,” said Kay G. Hagler. “He wants to be remembered with a happy smile but I’d be happy if each of you light a candle for him. There’s something special that I’ll do because it’s in his wishes and you’ll be informed at the right time.”
