Middleweight World Championship Series Middleweight World Championship Series The Middleweight World Championship Series was a boxing round-robin tournament staged by Don King Productions. The goal of the series was to produce a unified Middleweight boxing champion. The victor took the WBC, WBA, IBF and vacant Ring Magazine 160-pound belts home, and became the first undisputed middleweight king since Marvellous Marvin Hagler held the distinction from 1979 until 1987. The victor was also awarded a specially commissioned "Sugar" Ray Robinson trophy. The contenders in the tournament were William Joppy(WBA champion), Keith Holmes(WBC champion), Bernard Hopkins(IBF champion), and Félix Trinidad. The semifinals pitted Trinidad against Joppy
Professional boxing knocked him out in brutal fashion. This fight made Hagler famous; he was able to lure Ray Leonard out of retirement in 1987, but lost in a highly-controversial decision. Hagler retired from boxing immediately after that fight. In the latter half of the decade young heavyweight Mike Tyson emerged as a serious contender. Nicknamed "Iron Mike", Tyson won the heavyweight unification series to become world heavyweight champion at the age of 20 and the first undisputed champion in a decade. Tyson soon became the most widely known boxer since Ali due to an aura of unrestrained ferocity, such as that