Is GGG is an all-time top 5 middleweight?

There is a misconception that Hopkins didn't have an amateur career, but apparently he has been boxing since he was a kid.

 

He has said in interviews he started boxing at nine years old. He was an amateur in Philadelphia when that city was still a hotbed of boxing.

Yet I've often seen it stated he had no amateur career or even that he took up boxing as an adult in the penitentiary.

 

H2H, he might just be. But in terms of greatness, he probably isn't. He should have fought bigger names sooner, when he was younger.

 

A highly thought of prospect making his way up in the amateur system could in no way compare to the rough living of over a 100 years before. One could pile up 3, sometimes more, 3-round fights in a day as an amateur with significant rests in between. A veteran from back in the day would have had to contend with mounting injuries and sub-normal training and nutrition.

Hopkins' time in the penitentiary also likely did more harm to his body than the cumulative wear-and-tear of a 400 fight amateur career when you consider what he had to eat and train with. Plus he had fights while inside with likely less protection.

 

I don't see any reason to doubt both Hopkins and Golovkin were relatively well preserved fighters.

 

You keep mentioning Holmes and Joppy like GGG would have a problem with them. He wouldn't, he would crush them both.

 

The things is with GGG that he crushes just about everyone in his fans hypotheticals, but in reality he just scraped by, if that, guys like Jacobs and Derveveynchenko. These guys are decent contenders in the bigger picture, nothing more than that, and GGG could well have lost both decisions. The fights were that close.

Is there any other fighter, I mean literally any at all, that gets rated so highly by his fans on what they think he would have done instead of what he actually did do?

 

If he'd done that he'd be nr. 1 at MW, probably by a distance.

 

Keith Holmes was never dropped let alone stopped in 46 professional fights from 160 -175

He was a big man so its not very likely he's getting crushed by a guy who couldn't crush the smaller glassier chinned Danny Jacobs.

GGG would crush Joppy but not Holmes

 

First off, GGG has a history of making highlight reel KO'S of Ring mag and top 10 and alphabet contenders. Just because he had a competitive fight that he clearly won vs Jacobs who is huge mobile and a big puncher, who was fighting out of his skin, and struggled against a rugged top 5 contender in Derevyanchenko while being at the age of 38 and reportedly under the weather, doesn't mean he would have struggled vs Joppy or Holmes. I was a fan in both era's and can clearly see who would have won.

 

Geale, Lemiwux etc were poor contenders, that were dominated also by Cotto and BJS. Deveynchenko has beaten no one of note and lost more clearly to Charlo than he did to GGG. Jacobs biggest wins are the very close one over Dereveynchenko and two over Mora, was well beaten by Canelo and just scraped by Rosado in his last outing. He's good, but nothing really special. Hopkins was dominating guys of that level in his mid and late 30's.

What you think they would have done in Hopkins era means nothing to me.

 

Jacobs KOED Quillin in 1 round, i guess you forgot that. Joppy and Holmes would be having good fights vs Geale, Macklin, Stevens, and the like, not totally destroying them. Did you forget that Martinez had all kinds of trouble vs prime Macklin and prime Murray? Sturm was defeated by Geale in a unification, Cotto got the defeated, weight drained demoralized version of Geale. Murray Got a draw in Germany vs Sturm and we know what that means. Joppy had life and death struggles vs Julio Cesar Green. I agree that Holmes was a good boxer, but i doubt he could keep GGG of of him.

 

Macklin was KO'd by an ageing Martinez that was his level. Murray dropped an UD to a Martinez that would be levelled by old small Cotto in his next fight. That was his level.

Geale won an SD against ageing Sturm, that was his claim fame really, and even though he drained a lot against Cotto it wasn't like that fight was remotely compeitive. And Cotto was hardly al WW in size, ffs, making catch weights of 156 with several lbs to spare, and in his mid 30's. A good contender wouldn't be outclassed like that by old Cotto, drained or nor.

I think Jacobs at MW beat a total of two fighters that were ever ranked and one of those wins were razor close. His last fight was a very lackluster performance. Has Dereveynchenko even beat one ranked fighter?

And, for the last time, it is of no interest to me whatsoever who you think would have won of x and x. I rank these guys on what they did do, which wasn't all that much, not on what you think they would do.

I would double dare you to say again that you think Jacobs would do this and that in Hopkins's era, but I'm done repeating myself now I think. So long.

 

Some of Hopkins and GGG's opposition is comparable, but at the high end, Hopkins' best wins are better. Echols, Johnson, Joppy, Holmes, Allen, Eastman and Mercardo are a better bunch than Murray, Macklin, Geale, Lemiuex, Proska, Derev and Rosado. Hopkins' win over De La Hoya is better than GGG's over Brook. And Hopkins' win over Trinidad is better than GGG's over Jacobs.

I don't doubt that GGG's standing would sky rocket had he earned one of the Canelo fights; but as someone who scored the pair of them as draws, I don't really see any reason to arbitrarily gift him these as wins. Even if I did score them as GGG wins, the fights were far too close to 'overrule' the official decision and let GGG have extra credit for them. If you have to use a loss and a draw for the reason why your guy is so great, you're not in s great spot. It's as disingenuous as giving Hopkins a win over Taylor, in addition to his other wins.

Personally, I tend to give a fighter credit for wins at other weights against other fighters from their weight. So, for instance, I'll credit Johnson's win over Charles to his ranking at LHW, even though it happened at heavyweight. The reason is because they're both from the same weight and irrespective of weight, one fighter won and I think that should count at their original weight. So I tend to credit Hopkins' wins over Pavlik and sometimes Wright to his ledger (I go back and forth on whether Wright is too much of a stretch). I can see why others wouldn't, though.

I'm not one to care much for a clean or messy record, so I don't have a dog in the "oh but Hopkins lost to Jones and drew with Mercardo" fight, but regardless, I think it speaks volumes that Hopkins was willing to get in there with Jones in the first place when you consider GGG didn't wanna go anywhere near Ward.

And GGG has NINE title defences. Not twenty. Using the regular WBA belt as GGG's starting point is like using Hopkins' USBA title for his (which would send his total to 25 defences).