Hopkins is a legend. His run of title defenses is historic by itself. The fact that he's gone on to win world titles in his 40's makes him an ATG. Joe is a shadow in comparison to Hopkins. Besides, the Eubank win came less than a year before Eubank retired. Its not like Joe beat a prime version of him.
can you see that you are trying to claim that best accomplished wins=near height of ability? And whislt I am not saying they are entirely mutually exclusive, they are different things.
this is something i wrote about calzaghe and hopkins about a year ago iceferg 1st of all lets dispell the myth about the supposed greatness of hopkins resume, take away the smoke and the mirrors and this is what your left with from hopkins 6 best wins, with 4 of them being from when he made his opponent fight way above what their best weight was. trinidad prime weight = welterweight (147) fought hopkins at middleweight (159) :deal trinidads record at middleweight or above from hopkins onwards = 2 wins / 3 defeats winky wright prime weight - light middleweight (154) fought hopkins at - 170 lbs :deal in 57 fights, the hopkins fight was the only fight that wright had weighed over 160 lbs (a full 10lbs difference) de la hoya prime weight - welterweight (140lbs) fought hopkins at - middleweight (160lbs) :deal de la hoya only fought twice in his career at middleweight out of 45 fights -1 win / 1 loss - the win was a very debatable decision over eurobum felix sturm pavlik prime weight - middleweight (160 lbs) fought hopkins at - 170 lbs :deal in 34 fights pavlik had only fought 2 minnions at the beginning of his career at 169. all pavliks fights since hopkins have been at the 160 limit. tarver prime weight 175 great 2 weight jump from hopkins and his best win despite tarver being a b-level fighter and going 3 wins / 3 losses from hopkins onwards. johnson prime weight -super mid / light heavy (162 to 175) fought hopkins at - middleweight (160) johnsons record at 160 + from hopkins onwards - 19 wins / 14 defeats / 2 draws the defeats have come against people of the level of ottke, woods, shieka, gonzales, harmon, branco, vanderpool, Kiwanuka, sosa next you throw in the fact that calzaghe beat hopkins sandwiched inbetween hopkins supposedly best performances of tarver, wright, pavlik, pascal. take into account that for the hopkins fight, calzaghe - fought at light heavy for the 1st time - fought in hopkins back yard - had hopkins brother joe cortez referee the fight and do everything in his power to try and even up the fight despite all this, joe calzaghe with extreme brittle hands defeated hopkins. now we here you hopkins fans scream "that wasn't hopkins prime", well it was certainly the point of hopkins career where he was getting his best results. was hopkins prime when he was beating robert allan 3 times and beating hakkar and calling every welterweight on the planet to fight him? so we then answer the question of why the 2 hopkins and calzaghe didn't fight each other whilst in their supposed primes in 2002 This content is protected This content is protected This content is protected now it wouldn't be fair for me not to give hopkins some credit because he is a very clever man, extremely astute tactically and defensively, he knows how to disrupt an opponents rhythm and he knows to neutralise an opponents strengths. he's also very good at calling out fighters he knows he can expose tactically and calling out fighters he will have big weight and strength advantages over. the bottom line in all this for me though, is that bernard hopkins was not good enough to win 7 of his fights (5 defeats, 2 draws). there is a clear blueprint there of how to beat hopkins and this is probably the reason why hopkins didn't want to fight dawson but was desperate to fight pascal. on the other hand, there is no blueprint to beat calzaghe, sure fighters can cause calzaghe problems but there is a versatility in him, a common trate in great fighters where he can adapt to the man he is fighting and find a way to win, the charachter to stare adversity in the face and walk through it by adapting his gameplan to that of his opponent. for hopkins there will always be a blueprint of how to beat him but for calzaghe there never will be. on top of that there will always be that head to head victory over a version of hopkins that is far better than any hopkins fan on here will be prepared to admit, as well as the 7 fights hopkins wasn't good enough to win.
That was disgraceful. True. Outside of Tarver his record isnt very good against top fighters who were not blown ups.
Both of these guys moved up to super middle weight in an attempt to win a title and neither succeeded. Echols losing to Mundine and Vanderpool losing to Lacy.
i think tarver is his greatest achievement, i'm not sold on tarver being a particularly great fighter but it was still a magnificent win for hopkins. the same for the win v pascal as well, not because i think pascal is any great shakes but because of hopkins age and the fact he did it in pascals back yard.
Well you can't go destroying champions when your shot. I personally did not see a better performance from B-Hop than the Tarver/Pavlick ones.
DLh was nothing special at mw, but Tito was decent, although not as good as people like to make him out to be. I would favor Pavlik against those two at mw, but I cant see how that makes Pavlik a good win at lhw. Hopkins best wins imo: Tito Tarver Pascal
you can say the same for glen johnson, johnson had relative success at 160 and 175, but his record in the 168 division was terrible.
I think Hopkins deserves a lot of credit for what he's done in his 40's and I can understand how it may tip it in his favour in many people's eyes over Calzaghe. People should remember though that this is a MW title reighn vs. SMW title reighn thread.
Tarver is a hit and miss fighter. He obviously has certain character flaws which have held him back to some extent. I agree with this. Pascal is basically contender level with four rounds of stamina. Dawson had no business losing to a fighter of that calibre
This is all well and good if you a. believe every report that comes your way, and b. believe that Calzaghe actually beat Hopkins. I don't think there is a distinct blueprint of a game plan to beat Hopkins. I think he beats himself. When he's in a position to do more than usual to overturn the bias against him, he sometimes refuses to. You can see it happening in the fight. He is doing enough, having an easy run, frustrating his opponent, but because of his complacency doesn't do that bit extra.
he won the title at 168, although the germans took it from him. i wouldnt call that terrible, unless you mean Calzaghe winnning the WBO title was a terrible acheivement too.