A box­ing am­bas­sador is how T&T Box­ing As­so­ci­a­tion Tech­ni­cal Di­rec­tor Reynold Cox and pro­mot­er/match-mak­er Boxu Potts have de­scribed for­mer world mid­dleweight cham­pi­on 'Mar­vel­lous' Mar­vin Ha­gler fol­low­ing his death on Sat­ur­day night.

His wife, Kay, an­nounced his death on the Face­book page for Ha­gler's fans.

“I am sor­ry to make a very sad an­nounce­ment,” she wrote. “To­day un­for­tu­nate­ly my beloved hus­band Mar­velous Mar­vin passed away un­ex­pect­ed­ly at his home here in New Hamp­shire. Our fam­i­ly re­quests that you re­spect our pri­va­cy dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time.” He was 66 years old.

On Sun­day, Potts who had the op­por­tu­ni­ty of meet­ing the for­mer box­er at a WBC Con­ven­tion back in 2016 and de­vel­oped a close friend­ship with him, ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to his fam­i­ly and the world box­ing fra­ter­ni­ty, say­ing the world has lost a true am­bas­sador.

Potts said he re­mem­bers Ha­gler for the way he car­ried about him­self, both in­side and out­side the box­ing ring. "He con­duct­ed him­self with pride and ho­n­our, two qual­i­ties that I would like to see young box­ers the world over em­u­lat­ing. He re­mained sim­ple and was a man for the grass­root peo­ple de­spite his fame and for­tune."

Ac­cord­ing to Potts, "When I met him in 2016 he gave me his com­mit­ment that he would help in the de­vel­op­ment of the sport through the WBC youth pro­gramme in any way he can, and he was set to de­liv­er."

Ha­gler emerged at a time when dom­i­nat­ing in a di­vi­sion with great box­ers such a Rober­to Du­ran, Tom­my Hearns and Sug­ar Ray Leonard, among many oth­ers, was dif­fi­cult, but Ha­gler did it, show­ing the type of fight­er he was, Cox said.

"I have on­ly heard about Muham­mad Ali and oth­er great fight­ers, but Ha­gler I have seen and I think he is one of the best fight­ers the world has ever seen. The way he car­ried about him­self was noth­ing short of be­ing an am­bas­sador for the sport. Last night I was ac­tu­al­ly show­ing my fight­ers here how much they can learn from Ha­gler, his de­ter­mi­na­tion and ex­treme tal­ent which took him to the heights of his ca­reer."

Ha­gler walked away from the sport af­ter a de­feat to Leonard in 1987, a split-de­ci­sion fight which he thought he had won.

He held the ti­tle as the undis­put­ed mid­dleweight cham­pi­on of the world from 1980 to 1987, af­ter get­ting his first shot in 1979 against Vi­to An­tuofer­mo.