MARVELLOUS Marvin Hagler’s untimely death has focused the mind of boxing on one of the toughest, determined and noble men to ever occupy the ring. 

A product of New Jersey’s black working class, he worked for everything he achieved in a sport that all too often let him down with bad decisions, lack of opportunities to progress his career when he deserved them and poor purses relative to his peers. 

Rather than allow the myriad of injustices he experienced deter him from his goal of being a world champion, though, Hagler absorbed them with the same inner strength with which he absorbed opponents’ punches.