Manny Pacquiao, definitely. Hopkins dominated a weak division and fought several blown up Welterweights. Kudos to him.
Hopkin ruled the middleweights for years. Even into his 40s he's giving the top guys today all they can handle and more. Pacs cherry picked since he became the man everyone wants to fight. And he came onto the scene as legends Morales and Barrera were fading Close, but i pick Hopkin
Pac's career is clearly much better, even now..I think Bernard is the superior fighter for now, though Pac still seems to be improving.
Hopkins, and in my opinion it's not too close. IMO he's the fighter of the decade too, and when the decade started, he was already a dominant MW champion. I don't expect many to agree, but it's always the same: popular and exciting fighters always get the more credit and it takes time to rank the Whitaker type of ring masters properly. Of course Pac has still a lot left in him to overcome Bernard, but be realistic, Hopkins pulls off one stunning performances after another, and you can make a point that in your opinion he beat all of the following fighters: Johnson, Tito, Oscar, Taylor, Tarver, Wright, Calzaghe, Pavlik, and he fought his last 6 past 40. He had a 12-year winning streak, 10 years as a champion, a top3 MW ever, was never soundly beat, never even close being stopped. On the skill level, he's much more a complete fighter, overall better skills, fights more intelligently, no major flaws, doesn't rely just on physical gifts (when Roy got slightly past it, he immediately started to lose badly, we just don't know how would Pac respond to fading physically). Hopkins is the better fighter overall, and given his divisional dominance, his age as a factor and the elite names he fought most of them past 38 years of age, he has the slightly better resume to. So Hopkins gets my nod overall.
I voted for Pacquiao simply because his overall achievements surpass those of Hopkins. Bernard has had a remarkable career (being able to produce the kind of performances he has over the age of 40 is amazing) and he's probably the more skilled, intelligent fighter. Having said that, Pacquiao has produced some incredible victories over the span of 10 weight classes. I have Pac higher, with a little daylight between them.
Pac by a street Hopkins dominated a fairly weak MW division but you cant take away the fact the stuff he has done since moving up has been pretty impressive , but even then the only true LWH he beat was Tarver, yeah he went close with Claz but close aint the same as winning. Also Hopkins fought at home all but once (a draw) . His biggest wins were also almost all against guys coming up in weight. Pac on the other hand has gone through all the lighter division ( admittedly easier to do in the low weight classes ) has been fighting almost nothing but champions for the past 6 years, has almost exclusively been fighting guys who were naturally bigger than him and ( not that it really effects greatness ) has never been in a stinker , which is not somehting could be said of Bernard. Put it this way DLH was considered a decent win for Hopkins , Pac fought him too. One started at Light Heavy the other at Light Fly ( I think ! ) Bernard is an all time great Middleweight Pac is an all time great. Thats the difference
you make some great points skill wise hopkins is better, i still go with pac by a wide margin....but i also think when they do these fighter of the decade/era list hopkins is very underrated on most of these list that i have seen.
Pac is my boy but I gotta rank B-Hop higher. He's never been knocked out, he beat several prime undefeated fighters, been a top P4P fighters for years and has beaten other future HOFers.