Who's greater all time? Bhop or RJJ?

Hopkins.

 

Best Wins: RJJ becauseToney/Hopkins/Hill/Griffin/Tarver/Ruiz > Trinidad/DLH/Tarver/Pavlik/Winky/Holmes

Depth of Resume: Pretty close, Hopkins may be edging it now though

H2H: RJJ dominated him with 1 hand

Longevity: Obviously Hopkins as this is his 18th year of world title fights. But RJJ was a champion for 10years himself and was actually P4P no1 for pretty much 9years of that time, Hopkins was P4P no1 for about a year

 

Jones, Jr. though it is increasingly a trickier question. My position is that Jones, Jr, at his best, was better than any version of Hopkins. Period.

And as quick as we are to give credit to Hopkins for beating with a very weak Pascal, he did lose twice to a rather underwhelming Tayor and another guy in Calzaghe who certainly wasn't at his best. You can't get credit for one without getting reprimanded for the other.

Still, Hopkins is a marvel of sort different than Jones.

 

bhop better overall career but at their bests, jones is better. depends how you look at it.

 

Could be argued either way at this point I think. Perhaps Hopkins will settle the issue in the next year or so.

 

He may leave with a better long-term legacy (tho if you are going credit him the Pascal and Pavlik victories you must discredit him losing twice to Taylor and once to Calzaghe), but he was never as good as Jones was at his best.

 

I can't really discredit him for the losses, not in any meaningful way. Taylor, maybe, but not Calzaghe. He is and has been for several years now, well past his prime. It's a marvelous feat that he's able to put forth such performances as Pascal and Pavlik, as well as arguably beating a talented fighter like Calzaghe into his mid-40's and above his career best weight. It's not really a mark against him. Something like Duran's loss to Hagler, though not quite the same level.

Anyway, none of those losses are as damaging to his legacy as Roy's losses to Tarver and Johnson. I can forgive Calzaghe, Greene, and Lebedev because it was very, very obvious he was shot to pieces by the time of each fight, but he was only 34 and the recognized P4P king when Tarver flattened him in 2. That hurts his standing.

Roy was considerably better peak for peak, and there's no disputing that, but Hopkins doesnt have to be better to be greater.

 

Jones, but I won't close the door on ol' snaggletooth yet.

 

Jones Jr.

 

That's the crux of the argument.

I guess it's like people giving Duran a lot of credit for beating Barkley while downplaying fights like the Laing affair or even getting blasted by Hearns.

Still, a somewhat off and declining Calzaghe still pulled out, in my mind, a convincing victory of Hopkins, made all the more humiliating by Hopkins resorting to faking low blows to slow the pace. Moments like that don't leave my memory.

And it still astounds me how God-awful Pascal is... though I will give some credit to Hopkins for that.

 

Roy Jones
- naturally sized at middleweight to Light Heavyweight, who proved himself clearly the superior fighter at Middleweight against Hopkins when he beat him.

- Also schooled the only other great in their range of that era, in James Toney.

- Moved up to have good success and win titles at Light Heavyweight and Heavyweight. Fighting guys naturally bigger than himself.

Bernard Hopkins
- Huge middleweight, clearly lost to Jones Jr. His noteworthy victories came against undersized former lightweights and welterweights moving up.

- Is having great success at Light Heavyweight considering his age

- Has an uncanny abiltiy to lose ugly, doing just enough to make it close in the eyes of hipsters who like his old school throwback style, and score successful clinches as you would score effective power shots. Then cry robbery.

 

In the ring, I agree Jones was better. Does Jones failed drug test which was 5x over the normal limit in the Hall fight matter?

 

Hopkins