The wife of Marvelous Marvin Hagler said her husband’s recent death was not due to the COVID-19 vaccine, refuting claims spreading on social media the legendary fighter died after taking the jab.
“I was the only person close to him until the last minute, and I am the only person that know[s] how things went not even his family know all the details and I do NOT accept to read some stupid comment without knowing really what happen,” Kay G. Hagler, the wife of the 66-year-old professional boxer and actor wrote in a statement on Facebook.
“For sure wasn’t the vaccine that caused his death,” she continued in the bluntly writing statement. “My baby left in peace with his usually (sic) smile and now is not the time to talk nonsense.”
Hagler died over the weekend on March 13 after he was reportedly taken to a New Hampshire hospital after experiencing chest pains and difficulty breathing, according to a TMZ report, stating Hagler’s son as saying.
Rumors that the boxing legend was hospitalized after experiencing side effects from the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus vaccine, and later dying from it, was prompted in several posts on social media.
“Hammering Hank Aaron … now Marvelous Marvin Hagler two legends dead after taking the #covid19 vaccine,” Major League Baseball player Aubrey Huff said in an Instagram post that has since been flagged as fake by a fact-checker on the platform.
COVID-19 is the disease that is caused by the CCP virus, which is commonly referred to as the novel coronavirus.
Thomas Hearn, a former U.S. professional boxer who previously competed against Hagler, was also among the multiple posts claiming the boxer died after taking the vaccine.
“A real true warrior Pray for the kind and his family … he’s in the ICU fighting the after-effects of the vaccine!” Hearns wrote on Instagram on March 14, a post that has since been deleted by the platform.
Hagler’s wife said there will be no funeral because her husband hated funerals, adding that she is planning to do “something special” in accordance with his wishes.
“There is something special that I will do because it was his wishes and you will be informed at the right time by me I just need time,” she wrote.
Hagler has been described as one of the great middleweights in boxing history and stopped “rival” Hearns in a fight that lasted less than eight minutes yet was so epic that it still lives in boxing lore.
Two years later he was so disgusted after losing a decision to Sugar Ray Leonard—stolen, he claimed, by the judges—that he never fought again.
Hagler fought on boxing’s biggest stages against its biggest names, as he, Leonard, Hearns, and Roberto Duran dominated the middleweight classes during a golden time for boxing in the 1980s. Quiet with a brooding public persona, Hagler fought 67 times over 14 years as a pro out of Brockton, Massachusetts, finishing 62-3-2 with 52 knockouts.
He fought with a proverbial chip on his shoulder, convinced that boxing fans and promoters alike didn’t give him his proper due. He was so upset that he wasn’t introduced before a 1982 fight by his nickname of Marvelous that he went to court to legally change his name.
Any doubts Hagler wasn’t indeed Marvelous were erased on a spring night in 1985. He and Hearns met in one of the era’s big middleweight clashes outdoors at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas and when the opening bell rang they traded punches for three minutes in an opening round many consider the best in boxing history.
Hagler was born in Newark, New Jersey, and moved with his family to Brockton in the late 1960s. He was discovered as an amateur by the Petronelli brothers, Goody and Pat, who ran a gym in Brockton and would go on to train Hagler for his entire pro career.
He was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1993.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.