I remember watching this fight as if it was yesterday, Eastman just didn’t know what to do with Hopkins
Weird I was just watching bhop vs Eastman yesterday. Recalling how despite Bhop being an ATG MW, he really didn’t beat anyone significant at that weight and it boiled down to second rate challengers like Eastman.
Eastman was a good, tough, eccentric and very tricky fighter though from what I remember. Thought he displayed some world class promise, At one point I think he had 40 fights with only one loss at world class level against Joppy. Always though he coulda beaten him but just didn't throw enough and was too content to be too technical.
This is common in modern boxing. I figure it has a lot to do with having 4 different sanctioning bodies. Too often now, do we get top contenders who never fought anyone else who is ranked. For an example: Erik Bazinyan; he is the WBO's #1 contender at 168. Erik however has not beaten a single WBO top 15 contender. How does that make any sense? How can he be the top contender? (sanctioning fees, of course) WBO's entire list of top contenders at 168 is laughable. 1. Erik Bazinyan 2. Rohan Murdock 3. Zach Parker 4. Zac Dunn 5. Roamer Alexis Angulo 6. Vincent Feigenbutz 7. Willie Monroe, Jr 8. Aslambek Idigov 9. Aidos Yerbossynuly 10. Juergen Braehmer 11. Fedor Chudinov 12. Emmanuel Martey 13. Lerrone Richards 14. Stefan Haertel 15. Mate Kis But imagine if they were actually forced to fight each other. We would certainly get worthy contenders if guys had to climb up the ranks by beating other ranked fighters. This holds true for all major titles and their rankings: https://fightnews.com/rankings-2 B-Hop, and many others, are a victim of their times.
