Hopkins is great but fortunate

The Trinidad win was not Hopkins' best performance.

 

I completely agree Hopkins put on a masterful performance, but History has shown that Tito wasnt a very good mw. His record at that weight is 3-2.

Joppys best wins were over shot Duran and Eastman who were both journeyman. So beating him is a solid win, but not a great win.

 

What was his best prformance at MW, if not the Tito performance?

 

hopkins fought at beautiful fight. i watch the replay quite often. i just feel that toney stopping nunn is a better win. yes he was down on the cards b/c nunn was just that damn good at mw.

six in one hand...half dozen in the other bone. i said you could put hopkins ahead of toney. i just rate a ko win over a prime undefeated nunn at mw that high. higher than anything hopkins did at mw and i respect what he did at mw.

edit to note that the last thing i am is some fanboy of james toney. in fact, nothing made me happier than to see jones (who was my favorite fighter growing up) clown his ass for the title. i'm a big fan of both tito and bhop. i just have that much respect for nunn at mw.

 

Allen II, Simon Brown are better candidates.

 

Hopkins didn't have a weak Middleweight division. It wasn't an all-time great division either. It was average, and he dominated it.

 

Allen II is one of my favourite all-time fights.

 

20 title defenses is very impressive & it takes a special fighter to do it. There is no way he was motivated for all those fights. There was no way he went in 100 % for every fight. Those guys were most likely highly motivated, so they tried to bring their A game. He still beat them.

 

i think it was.

excellent performance.

ruthlessly picked apart trinidad's weak spots. :bbb

 

think hopkins might have beaten toney.

would have been a good clash of styles back in the mid 90's.

hopkins was more of a pressure fighter back then.

and toney likes guys who bring it. :yep

 

yeah it was average.

reminds me a bit of trinidad's welterweight title reign.

a few too many don king hand picked easy ones.

but some decent wins on it.

trinidad onwards is where hopkins becomes a great fighter. :good

 

Hopkins didn't have an extensive amateur career and still gave RJJ all he could handle...I was a RJJ fan and wasn't sure he pulled this fight out at the time...Hopkins got better quick and I think a rematch would have been a pick'em fight...

Style wise, Hopkins beats Toney 9 out of 10 times at MW...

 

He wasn't that fortunate. Until Tito nobody really paid attention to Hopkins. His reign is a nice little cherry on the top of his career, but he will be remembered mostly for who he beat and how he performed rather than the amount of time he held the crown.