A couple questions here. Did Wright make a mistake taking this ffg ight @ 170 lbs? ( I think so ) Was Wright on the downside here? ( I think so again) Does this play out any different @160 befor Hop moved up in weight.
I agree with your observations on Wright....IMO he was chasing a softer retirement mixed with perhaps a stronger legacy......he was one of those excellent fighters that no one really wanted to fight he had the McCallum syndrome in some ways when it came to the big fights and money
Hopkins was going to beat Wright regardless. It was was an ugly fight but it's not as if Wright was on the slide and Hopkins was prime...he was still in his 40s and despite how well he aged, he still wasn't as good as he had been in year prior. Wright was a tough style to beat, but Hopkins would have always taken him. He was smarter and if he were younger would have been putting more punches together in his attacks. As a man in his 40s Hopkins focused on eliminating Wright's punches and throwing his own pot shots. As a younger man he'd have taken Wright's attacks away and been countering with quicker and sharper punches in better combination than what he did during their actual fight. Bernard is a class above Winky and it would always show.
I'm a fan of Hopkins but I didn't like how he won this fight. He won legit against pavlik, tarver, Trinidad. He showed tremendous heart against Pascal. But against winky he only took over once he headbutted his eye open and enraged him so much with various other fouls and spoiling tactics that he took him out of his game. And even then he basically just outscored him with pitty pat combos.
Nah, I think Winky and his team were wise to take this fight. He was not a big draw, and high risk for a lot of guys to fight. I am not sure what he got paid, but this was probably the biggest fight out there for him at this point. They had to know he was an underdog, but the combination of winky’s D and Hopkins diminishing workrate, made this a difficult fight but one he would probably finish on his feet. He was clearly in decline himself, so once again they had to strike while it was hot even if it meant 170. I think Hops would beat him widely at any stage they could have met.
On paper this should rank along Hopkins wins over Pavlik, Tarver, and Trinidad. Think about it, Winky was a longtime champ at 154 with legit p4p cred, as well as a draw against Taylor and an easy win over Ike Quartey. In many ways Winky was like another version of Hopkins: a skillful guy who had been kept out in the cold for year before cashing in with a series of wins over bigger names. But unlike Hopkins, Winky clearly began to lose his appetite for combat after becoming at star. I think the draw against Taylor corresponded with this loss of enthusiasm. In the preview show by HBO, there was a moment where Winky went to a Krispy Kreme factory. His trainer, the notorious hardass, Dan Birmingham gave a rather resigned shrug and told the camera: 'What can I say? Wink is gonna do what Wink is gonna do' while Winky was in the background scarfing down one doughnut off the assembly line, while licking the frosting off another. Try to imagine Bernard being caught in a moment like that...
OMG this cherry picking primes crap has got to stop. Winky was at the peak of his career when in 2007, coming off what most people thought was a win vs the former MW champ Jermaine Taylor the year before and ranked by anyone with half a brain top 3 P4P
I felt his prime was around 2002 or 2003 not 07 but again just my opinion. I have no favorites between the two. Just a general observation I thought I'd get an opinion on.
Read carefully..that's not what I said...I said it was somewhere in that time frame..maybe try stop looking for keyboard confrontation and read it objectively
Winky had no business at 170, so yes, that was a bad move. Winky was definitely on the downside, too (but so was Hopkins). And finally, at 160, I don't think it plays out much differently. Hopkins was always more versatile than Winky, and I don't think he'd ever have much trouble disrupting Winky's rhythm. Hopkins is all wrong for Winky (and naturally bigger as well).
