Most impressive: McCallum-Watson or Hopkins-Tito

BS.


No one who knew boxing and was familiar with BHOP & Tito believed he "could break Hopkins down" - that is patently ridiculous. Yes, the media of the moment was hyping it but the only ones that bought into that line of thinking were the young, the unknowledgeable, and those completely unfamiliar with Bernard Hopkins (once again those probably still mostly under 40 today). Certainly there were general sport fans and YOUNG boxing fans who undoubtedly believed the hype that Tito could move up two weight classes (and three from his career start at junior welter) and win this middleweight "tournament". Those older and familiar with the actual middleweight champ never considered Joppy and Holmes as anything particularly impressive - not at all. That said, it was terrific that Tito could move up and entertainingly take out Joppy (and after some exciting bouts at 154). But, it meant absolutely nothing at all in terms of being able to beat Bernard Hopkins. Nothing. In '01 if you believed that Tito was going to win you simply did not know boxing [or weren't in the US and didn't know the IBF middleweight champ] (and were likely young so that you only knew casual fan faves Oscar and Felix at that moment - but if you were old enough you knew that Bernard was sitting at the end of that tournament and thus, Tito never had a chance at the trophy).

Anyone who believed that Tito in '01 was gonna beat Hopkins (even at 36 1/2) was obviously not educated on Hopkins as a fighter. The only reason the fight wasn't an early KO was Bernard was becoming long in the tooth and drained compared to the prime version in his early 30s.

Your comment about being a "defensive specialist" is entirely irrelevant. Bernard in his physical prime was an aggressive seek and destroy type fighter. A prime version wouldn't have had to be concerned about recent ex-welterweight Tito's offense .. he would have applied his own to throw inside of Tito and overpower him and knock him straight the f**k out.

Felix's size, height, length, leverage, and power were great assets at 147. His comparatively more limited athleticism combined without having those advantages at 160 gave him no chance if you were familiar with Bernard Hopkins' attributes.

Simple as that.

 

Nah, I disagree. I definitely think you are guilty of revisionist history here. Tito had proven his artillery was still extremely effective at mw, and at that time we didn't know Bernard possessed high-level defensive skills and instincts that would allow him to so completely and so easily nullify one of the most all-round potent offences in the game. I am an older Hopkins fan myself, but to pretend now that the fight was a sure thing at the time is wrong IMO. Although B-Hop had demonstrated great defensive work the previous year in the Echols rematch, Echols isn't Tito. We had yet to see Bernard produce this type of performance against a proven prime HOF calibre opponent - the fight can't have been a foregone conclusion if Bernard had NEVER beaten an opponent of this quality before in his career.

And you're focusing way too much on size btw. Tito Trinidad was not a small mw, he didn't lose fights at mw because of size. He lost fights at mw because he faced two of the best defensive fighters of the modern era (Hopkins & Winky), he laid waste to the rest of his mw comp. Regardless of Tito's peak weight, his height, reach, weigh-in weights, dimensions etc were perfectly standard for an mw, not undersized at all.

You do B-Hop a disservice by retrospectively pretending that this was Mayweather-Gatti. It wasn't. At all.

 

On the point of Hopkins and Trinidad, every observer, even the well-informed, have a tendency to fall in love with the puncher.

Seems ridiculous now considering how many more miles Hopkins has got out of his body, but back in 2001 his 36 years were one of the main factors underlined to shape his favoured undoing.

 

No you're talking BS, Trinidad was considered by some the P4P no1, had just dominated the 154lb division, he was the betting favourite, boxers and trainers alike were picking Tito and Hopkins was considered old at 36. Tito was not considered a small MW, he had just blown out a champion, had the frame for the weight, could no longer make 154lbs and his career poor peformance against DLH was put down to his weight draining. As for Tito never having a chance at the trophy,yes because Don King would have put him in it if he thought he didn't have a chance

Allot of people come on forums pretending to have called things at the time and your posts sound like this. You would have been in a minority picking Hopkins if you did so at the time

1 thing I'll say though is, the current hype around another limited athletic puncher in Manny Pacquaio is similar to the Trinidad noise. Yet allot of knowledgable people are picking him over Mayweather

 

I agree with the parts in red.

 

Tito was heavier on the scale than Hopkins was, but I don't have the fightnight weights.

However, on my dvd of Hopkins-Taylor 1, the commentator looks at unofficial weights (which I think are 170 for Taylor and 167 for B-Hop, or something in that region), and says something to the co-commentator like: "It's unusual for Bernard to be that heavy at fight-time, do you think this is an attempt to match Taylor's weight?", and the reply is "Yes, I think so."

 

I think Hopkins was 171-172 against Delahoya

 

Well yes but Hopkins was a very muscular MW, in terms of height/reach Tito was his equal though. Haven't seen any fight night weights although in his next fight he was 168 in the ring

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJRaoKfwXAI[/ame]

 

I think McCallum over Watson was more impressive. Wasn't Trinidad more of a welterweight??

It's true that Watson was favourite over McCallum. I thought he'd win and think I put money on him. The consensus was that McCallum, then 33 (then considered very old in boxing), was past his best and proof of that was how he struggled against Herol Graham and the Irishman Steve Collins. Whereas Watson was coming off that perfect performance against Benn, who was considered an invincible fighting machine at the time.

Watson had always looked like a light-heavyweight fighting at middleweight, muscles coming out of his ears. He went in against Dangerous Don Lee as a late sub at 22 years old, Lee being a rangey southpaw switch-hitter and one of the hardest lb4lb punchers, and dominated and demolished him. He also dominated and demolished Ricky Stackhouse, who had done really well against Herol Graham and Duran.

I knew he'd beat Benn. One only had to compare their fights with common opponent Reggie Miller: Benn looked amateurish and off-balance - Watson was coming forward without being hit (always a sign of a good fighter) and always in position to throw after throwing, he just ground Miller out of there easily whereas Benn was being turned a lot and relied on his power in the end. Benn was a big favourite over Watson, though.

I thought Watson had long upper arms to block the body shots of McCallum and knew McCallum could be hit by right hands (Watson often couldn't miss that punch in previous fights). I also thought he was too big, strong, fit, fresh and young for McCallum.

Apart from all that, Watson was one of the most beautiful operators to watch - very smooth.

Anyway, enough about Watson. I hadn't actually seen Hopkins fight before the Keith Holmes fight, and remember Holmes looked quite good against some of our boys (McCracken and Woodhall), and I was quietly impressed with Hopkins. I always remembered Trinidad as a welterweight and thought Hopkins might be too well-levered and too physical for him (he was very physical against Holmes), too tall, too rangey. I didn't expect McCallum to punish Watson so much and almost seem to coast despite the fast pace...

 

It must be said though, McCallum-Watson was originally set for Nov '89 and Watson pulled out late with a broken nose. McCallum in the meantime had the perfect warm-up fight with light-punching, hard-chinned Steve Collins. On the night Watson's timing was off and the right hands were falling short (he'd been out of the ring for 11 months...) - he was also using the wrong tactics, his corner believing McCallum's age wouldn't handle a fast pace; that wasn't Watson's natural style, he preferred to operate at a steady pace while being destructive.

 

Watson had some outstanding results with his overarm right punch - taking out John Beckles (who only lost to the v.best Eastern Europeans and Cubans, close points) in the amateurs in '84 in 30 seconds with it, and dropping hugely talented Errol Christie with it in about 30 seconds, and smashed up highly dangerous Don Lee with it. He also landed it a lot on granite-chinned Eubank in their 2nd fight.

 

Wasnt Benn just hot prospect when Watson kod him? Eubank wasnt established yet either, so at the time those wins werent as big as they seem now.

Whether you consider Joppy a good figher or not he was repected at the time and some thought he would beat Tito Not knowing how he would do at Mw... Well Tito impressed big time and blew past Joppy, who was widely regarded as the 2nd best Mw at the time... Tito looked so good he was made the favorite over the long reingning and alreeady great Hopkins.. All this talk about Tito being an overblown ww and not a true mw weight is Bs.. He beat the 2 best hot shots st JM and IMO looked stronger at JM than WW.. I figured then and i still think he was a legit mw., Hopkins just had the right style and plain and simple just the better well rounded fighter, who had a plan b and plan c in case things didnt go his waTito just one plan and everyone knew. But his one dimension was good enough to make him a super star and one of the elite fighters of his generation. BUt Titos equalizers werent gonna cut it against B-Hop.

Hopkins win is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay bigger not even close. Before this fight Tito was the hottest thing in boxing, and After this win Hopkins was the biggest think in boxing and any critics he had , were quiet and nothing bad to say.

I vaguely remember the Watson-Mccallum fight,,gpod solid win, but no one was raving about this... And only hardcore fans cared about it..

B-Hop and Tito wee on the news every couple days for months before this fight,, And any cynics who doubted that Hopkins was an atg mw had now been convinced.

 

William Joppy really wasn't particularly good.