A brief seminar on the theory "Hopkins couldn't beat guys his own size" etc

Class is now in session:


Point#1 - A past-prime Bernard Hopkins deserved the decision in one of the fights vs Jermain Taylor, and in the other he deserved a draw. Taylor was the same size as Hopkins, had fast hands, and threw a good amount of punches.


Point#2 - A past-prime Bernard Hopkins deserved the decision vs Joe Calzaghe. Calzaghe was naturally heavier than Hopkins, had fast hands, and threw a high amount of punches.


Point#3 - A past-prime Bernard Hopkins beat Jean Pascal once, and deserved the decision against him in their other fight. Pascal was naturally heavier than Hopkins, had fast hands, and (before he met Bernard) was a guy who threw a lot of leather (see Froch and Dawson fights, and others). The fact that B-Hop made him drop his workrate is testament to Hopkins's skills and approach to that fight (this is the most important point in the context of this thread, as it destroys Bailey's whole shitty, biased argument in itself).


Point#4 - If you look through the physical measurements/statistics of Trinidad (5'11", 72 1/2" reach, weighed in at 158 1/2lbs) and Hopkins (6'1", 75" reach, weighed in at 157lbs) on the night they fought, there is only slight advantage to Hopkins - no more than a standard size disparity between any two fighters from the same weight class, and probably less than the size advantage enjoyed by guys who use the early weigh-ins to make weights that they are noticeably big at, guys like Pavlik at mw, Paul Williams at ww, Antonio Margarito at ww, De La Hoya at sfw and lw, etc etc.

By his physical stats, Trinidad is actually pretty big for a mw! Definitely not undersized (Sugar Ray Robinson was 5ft 11in with 72in reach, same as Tito, Marvin Hagler was 5ft 9in with 75in reach, smaller than Tito but longer arms, and Sergio Martinez is 5ft 10in with 75in reach, again smaller than Tito but longer arms).

Trinidad had KTFO a noticeably big (and possibly roided) Vargas for the lmw titles and annihilated Joppy, who spent his career between 160 and 168, in his last 2 fights before Hopkins.


Point#5 - Hopkins was a 6ft 1in guy who spent the vast vast majority of his career at 160lbs.

Pavlik was a 6ft 2 1/2in guy who spent the vast majority of his career of his career at 160lbs. Hopkins was his 2nd big fight above 160, he had won his only 1 against top opposition at a 166 catchweight. Therefore, he had already proven he was effective above 160 (later reinforced by the fact he moved up to 168 permanently).


Point#6 - Antonio Tarver is 6ft 2in and has never fought lower than 175lbs in his entire career, he didn't even start at smw as a novice, he has been a fully-sized natural lhw from day one. Hopkins's world title career from 1995-2006 was spent at 160lbs. At aged 40 and coming off 2 'losses', Bernard jumped not one but two weight divisions and schooled the linear lhw champ who had comfortably UD'd longtime lhw's Roy Jones and Glen Johnson in his last two fights.


Point#7 - Add to this that Hopkins also beat in his career: 6ft 2in Segundo Mercado, future lhw champ and long-time lhw fighter Glen Johnson, 5ft 11in Antwun Echols who fought for a world title at 168, 6ft 2in Keith Holmes who fought for a world title at 168, 5ft 11in Howard Eastman who also took Arthur Abraham to points.


The perception that Hopkins preyed on smaller men is false. He fought the best available, many of whom were the same size and some who were bigger.

He was a fairly tall middleweight, that is all.


Class dismissed. :good

 

Exactly.

On my copy of Hopkins-Taylor 1, the commentator sees that Hopkins had rehydrated to 167 and says something along the lines of "this is unusually heavy for Bernard. Do you think he's trying to match Taylor's rehydration weight?"

People on here would have you believing he was a natural cruiserweight or something. atsch

 

And Tarver was naturally bigger and heavier than Hopkins. Way to self-own yourself in under two sentences. :rofl

 

If Hopkins was killing himself to make 160, why was he only rehydrating to the mid 160s when he was fighting? :think

When Kelly Pavlik was killing himself to make 160, he was rehydrating to 178 (that was his fightnight weight for the Martinez fight). :deal

You are wrong, plain and simple. The facts, the stats, prove that. :good

 

:huh But Tyson was 215lbs and Khan is 140lbs. They are many weight classes apart. Hopkins fought in the same weight class as his opponents. Are you for real here??

 

"He beat up on more inexperienced fighters" - what does this even mean? Hopkins never won a world title until he was 30 years old, is he then supposed to only defend against guys who were older or had more fights than him? All he could do was fight what was available.

"blown up welterweights mostly" - mostly?? He beat Trinidad, who was every bit as good at 154 as he was at 147, and who was devastating in his 160 fight before meeting Hopkins. The other guys he fought who were champs at welter, ODLH - that was a money fight anyway, no way could Hopkins turn that fight down. Simon Brown was just a routine name defence when Hopkins was trying to build his own name and make some cash. As I note in my opening post, he fought some real big middleweights as well.


FYI, Monzon fought: Napoles, Griffith, Benvenuti - all naturally lower weight fighters

and Hagler fought: Leonard, Hearns, Duran, Mugabi - all naturally lower weight fighters

It is historically part and parcel of being a 160 champion that the best fighters from below will come up and challenge you. :deal