Hagler. He beat a lot of great fighters before he won the title, Bennie Briscoe, Ray Seales, Willie Munroe etc then Duran Hearns & Leonard, plus Mugabi, Hamsho,Sibson, to name a few. There's no comparison really
Ironically the era in between their respective reigns was the strongest IMO. Nunn Benn Eubank Toney Jones G-Man Jackson Norris McCallum Kalamby Watson Graham That's one hell of a list of fighters!!! Neither prime Hagler nor Hopkins would have been as dominant in that period!! On topic, Hagler...clearly!!! Hopkins MW reign was not full of great fighters, his most memorable win at the weight being over a WW. Of course you could say the same of Hagler, but the quality of natural MW's that Hagler beat was far superior!!
Great list How many total fights did they have against each other? I counted 20 (1) Nunn-Kalambay (2) Nunn-Toney (3) Benn-G-Man (4) Benn-Eubank (5) Benn -EUbank 2 (6) Benn- Watson (7) Toney -McCallum (8) Toney-McCallum 2 (9) Toney-McCallum 3 (10) Toney-Jones (11) G-Man -Jackson 1 (12) G-Man -Jackson 2 (13) Jackson-Norris (14) Jackson-Graham (15) Jackson-McCallum (16) McCallum-Kalambay 1 (17) McCallum-Kalambay 2 (18) McCallum-Watson (19) McCallum-Graham (20) Jones-McCallum Nunn Benn Eubank Toney Jones G-Man Jackson Norris McCallum Kalamby Watson Graham
This is a good point, Hagler and Hopkins fighting in this era would have made their reign far more interesting. Shame their wasnt more fights between them. Particularily between Jones, Toney and McCallum and Benn, Eubank and Graham (Graham and McCallum did face each other I know). Steve Collins can also be added to that list.
A few of those guys were Hagler era men.Some of htem were just poorly managed and took ages to get anywhere like Kalambay and Graham, or opted to fight at light middle like McCallum and Jackson.
They were but he never fought them and they came to prominence at 160 in the years after he was gone.
I do think Hagler would still reign at the top of the 90's crowd. For B-Hop I always feel Prime Jones would be a bad stylistic matchup for him, he wouldn't be able to reign him in and dictate the pace like he would a lot of other fighters. I feel Hop would beat a lot of those guys mind. Hagler though, whilst having scarier moments (I imagine a seriously cagey but massive punching Pre-Watson Eubank would be a tough proposition for him, though Marv's body punching would see him through as Eubank never liked it there, as well as Jones) and another fighter I feel would have a really good shot at Hopkins would be Mike McCallum, good workrate, jab, cool-headed and not going to allow Hop to be the supreme ring general he can be. I say McCallum is a very, very bad matchup for B-Hop. I say, in answer to the first point, Hagler fought in a better era. I think Hopkins would've done well in Haglers era as well, barring Hagler.