Is Hopkins the greatest fighter in terms of longevity?

Hats off to that crafty old dude,how he gets the young Lions to fight his fight is amazing,I thought for sure Cloud would clean his clock.

 

i think what hopkins has done past 40 has been amazing but the guys he's beat have been pretty limited. in fairness to hopkins though, they've been the best of the era around 175. hopkins still only has an 8-4-1 (and 1NC) record after his 40th birthday. but again in fairness to hopkins, dawson was the only one that clearly beat him.

 

Beating 8-9 and 1-0 fighters isn't hard. Hopkins is fighting purely world class, tough fights. Archie has big fights, but a lot of his legendary volume is also fighters well beneath the world level.

If Hopkins fought Don Moudon and Ken Buchanan next month, he'd beat them, and it wouldn't be any sweat or mileage off his clock to do it.

 

That's harsch. I only buy all this "era this and era that" so far. If you beat the best around, you're a damn good fighter. If you do it while closing on 50, you're damn near amazing. If I didn't believe that, I'd never rank Robinson as high as I do. He definitely had the advantage of coming into transitional eras. If he had contended with Burley, Williams, Moore and Charles instead of LaMotta and Turpin his MW record would have several more losses on them IMO. And saying that Fulmer and Basilio are better MWs than the guys Hopkins has been beating at LHW, while 10 years older, is boloney to me.

I actually think Hopkins get somewhat overrated as a technician, but underrated in terms of record and achievements. The only way he could have had a substantially better legacy IMO would have been by beating RJJ, preferably in 2001 or 2002.

 

You think Dawson and Pascal are as good as Fullmer?.

Even Basilio at middle was miles better than either.

Hopkins didn't look good in any of these fights.Nothing in them suggests i should think he's "damn good" any more.it's a dire state light heavy is in and even in stronger divisions plenty of fighters throughout history have picked up a few wins without being any more than average or mediocre.Hell in the alphabet era there are numerous champs with a decent number of defences that were never more than 5 out of 10 fighters.

I don't see a comparison between Hopkins light heavy career and Robinson's past prime exploits at all.Robinson wasn't as old, and was fighting much better fighters.There's a helluva lot more back and forth, two-way quality in Robinson vs Fullmer and Basilio fights than there is in any of hopkins late bouts.

I do think Hopkins looked good against Tarver and pavlik.Those were good wins.It's the later stuff that bothers me he is given so much credit for.The gets them to fight his fight thing is tiresome and overplayed.Ruiz was good at getting you to fight his fight as well..if you were third rate.Nobody ever gave him much credit for it.Hopkins isn't much different these days.

 

Fullmer is twice the fighter Dawson or Tarver is.

And I'm just talking about Don. :good

 

Chad Dawson is a hack now? Sit your crotchety ass down.

 

In my opinion Hopkins has had a better career at 40 and beyond than Moore.

 

No. Hopkins is a good albeit boring fighter but his longevity is as much the lack of good competition as it is his ability. At LH he would be ranked somewhere between 5th and 10th in the 60's and 70's because Moore, Harold Johnson, Gregorio Peralta, Wayne Thornton, Eddie Cotton, Willie Pastrano, Roger Rouse and others would be too tough and too strong for him. As a middle weight in the 50 and 60's, he would be lucky to break the top 10. Ray Robinson, Eduardo Lausse, Joey Giardello, Gene Fullmer, Rory Calhoun, Spider Webb, Bobo Olson, Tiger Jones, Dick Tiger, Holly Mims, George Benton, Joey Archer and a few others, would best him on most nights.

 

It's an embarassing reflection on the current talent pool is what it is.

 

Threads like this exemplify why the Classic pisses me off. If you think Moore is the better choice thats absolutely fine, but try and justify your reasons by telling us what you like about the stuff Archie did rather than pick holes in the stuff Hopkins has done, especially when you're making up bollocks about how Hopkins has cherrypicked. Pascal was number 1 in the division when they fought, Dawson was the number one contender, Cloud was a top 5 guy. Who should he have fought if he wasn't 'cherrypicking'?

 

Does the win over Murat (limited, but legitimate top 10 fighter) 3 months shy of age 49 (!) change anything in the Hopkins-Moore comparison?
In my book, if Hopkins at 49 manages to beat Shumenov (I think this will be his next fight), he will secure his place as the best old fighter ever.

 

He already has secured that spot. The only thing that could screw it up is if he fails a peds test.