Bernard Hopkins 2001 vs. Joe Calzaghe prime, who wins this fight?

JC won their fight in which Hopkins used spoiling tactics. Prime for prime I can see a closer fight. Hopkins demolition of Johnson versus JC pre-Lacy. A hard one to pick, but I tend to think JC throws too many punches for Hopkins.

 

This is how the fight would go. Trust me people.

 

It is not all about youth and in your opinion his stamina was better and energy levels. He never faced an opponent with the speed and style of Calzage who also was not young when they fought. At 168lbs I like Calzage. I always thought B-Hop was a very good middleweight but his middleweight resume was long but not spectacular. Tito was not a middleweight nor was Delahoya, most thought he lost to Strom, some guy when they put on weight are just carrying extra baggage, Hopkins was not one of those guys.

Funny that you thought the Calzage and Pascal fights were among his best...I thought Calzage won that clearly but I guess not everyone see a fight the same way. For me once a guy crys a foul and it was obvious in the replays that B-Hop was faking it. Even Manny Stewart said Bernard is looking for rest because the pace is getting to him and I agree Bernard needed a rest and he got a few but it did not allow him the victory and for me cheap tactics work the opposite and I thought Joe won it clearly.

 

No it doesn't. Fighters who are "drying out" to make weight don't have room for a margin of error - that's precisely why they are drying out in the first place. To claim that a fighter is giving "a herculean commitment and near monk-like sacrifice" (YOUR exact words) to get down to 160, and then just casually loses three whole pounds for no reason at all, is completely contradictory, if not frankly absurd.

You have absolutely no clue what Hopkins "would've" done without Shilstone or how he would've transitioned to LHW without him. The FACT remains that he only headed up after he had lost his title and was unable to regain it, and he invested considerable time and effort into following Shilstone's plan in order to transition upward. And just because a fighter is theoretically capable of moving up in weight doesn't mean he will "transition easily" at all. In fact, one of the reasons many fighters work to stay down at a lower weight is specifically because they won't transition well to a higher one.

 

Fantasy fight, yes - but not fantasy fighters.

People here are talking about a "version" of a fighter that never actually existed.