Roy Jones as a Middleweight champ

You obviously havent watched that fight in full, Hopkins kicked Mercados asss

 

Look at his style and how much he gets hit. I think the first fight with Mercado was a wake-up call for Hopkins, the point where he realized he could not succeed without significant improvements.

 

Hopkins clearly won 95% of the first Mercado fight, looked for the KO by pressuring throughout the fight and suffered 2 off balance kds against a big puncher, but clearly won

There is a myth that Hopkins significantly improved, don't buy into that stupidity, the only people who believe that are those that want to discredit the Hopkins win

 

I've seen all of Hopkins's filmed fights. If there's a more clear case of a fighter improving and changing up his style then I haven't seen it. Hopkins went from being a traditional Philadelphia pressure fighter to a crafty master-boxer.

Against Jones he was timid and lacking ideas. It was still not a complete shut-out. I imagine the Hopkins of 2001 would have given Jones some real problems that the likes of David Telesco, Richard Hall, Derrick Harmon and Glen Kelly could not present.

 

Castro was a solid fighter, limited but tough as nails. Jones resume at the weight is very thin however he looked on another level to most which is why people may favour him over fighter who achieved more.

 

Nobody with some brains can disagree with that.

 

I´d favour him over quite a few guys I rank clearly over him. :good That does not make him a great mw though.

 

Exactly, which is why I always laugh at people who wished that Jones and Hopkins would have fought in 2002, because the fight would have looked exactly the same as their fight in 1993, which was a boring 12 round tactical stinker.

 

True this.

I watched this fight expecting to see Hopkins getting all he could handle but knockdowns aside (one of which was bull****) I thought Hops clearly won it,not to mention destroying Mercado in the rematch to settle it anyway.

Hopkins was far from the greenhorn Jones detractors would have you believe but already a very,very polished,formidable fighter at that point in time.

Did Hopkins improve?

I'd say yes but it's still a damn good win for Jones anyway you look at it imo.

 

Of course it is a good win. It´s a good win over a good contender. But it is not a great win over an atg.

 

True. On hindsight it is a very good win but at the time Hopkins was rated with the likes of Vinny Pazienza. Obviously Hopkins is a better win than Pazienza but it is not the same as beating the man who had recently destroyed Felix Trinidad. Hopkins's best win at that point was probably over journeyman Gilbert Baptist. Chances are that you won't go from beating Gilbert Baptist to beating Roy Jones.

 

I think it's a little better than that in light of how good Hopkins has proven to be.

I mean part of the reason people rate Ezzard Charles first at Lt Heavyweight is his 3 wins over Archie Moore who would later go on to become an ATG at this weight,yet at the time Charles beat him Moore was just another very good contender amongst many.Yet I don't see any problems in giving Charles major props for this because we all know that whilst Moore may have improved he was already a proven top fighter and an awesome name to have on a resume,no matter when you fought him.

I'm not saying Jones-Hopkins is the same but you can see what I'm getting at in why I rate it more highly as a win for Jones than you do.

 

:-(

 

Well, I can see were you are coming from and I agree partly. Hopkins is a good name to have on your resume. But I disagree with with your Charles-Moore comparison. I don´t think people rate Charles that high because of the Moore win, well, at least I´m not doing so.
Having a great fighter on your resume does not automatically mean it´s a great win.

 

The Hopkins fight was an accident. Jones wouldn’t have fought him if he thought he was a threat. They guy has 2 or 3 good fights the rest are really smoke and mirrors. He’s a product of his age. A classic front-runner who kids liked because he dominated weak opposition and could do silly showboating moves. He had more than enough opponents to prove himself to be one of the very greatest fighters. He missed 90% of them. A juiced up fighter who was so protected he spawned the Roycott movement. He was the sport’s main draw for a while…dark days for boxing.