Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns Dick Young of California. Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns Marvelous Marvin Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns (originally billed as "The Fight", referred to afterward as "The War"), was a world middleweight championship boxing match between undisputed champion Marvin Hagler and challenger Thomas Hearns, the world junior middleweight champion, who had gone up in weight for the bout. Won by Hagler by third round knockout, the fight is considered by many to be among the finest boxing matches in history, due to its constant action, drama, and violent back-and-forth exchanges. By 1985, "Marvelous" Marvin Hagler had been the undisputed champion of the
World Boxing Organization (as they did with several established champions in the lower weight divisions), the WBO sanctioned a fight between two relatively unknown fighters, Francesco Damiani (winner of the super heavyweight silver medal at the 1984 Summer Olympics) and Johnny DuPlooy, to determine the inaugural holder of its own heavyweight title in 1989. All other sanctioning bodies of boxing recognized the then-undefeated Mike Tyson as the undisputed heavyweight champion. Damiani, meanwhile, went on to become the first WBO heavyweight champion. At heavyweight, especially in the United States, the organization initially struggled to gain credibility as a major sanctioning body, with WBO heavyweight