20 defences at middleweight. Lets analyse. 3 defences against Robert Allen?!! 2 against Sergundo Mercado?!! Wins against Council!! Frank!! Lipsey!! James!! Vanderpool!! Echols!! Hakkar!! Best wins - Trinidad and De La Hoya!! Both former welterweights!!! Boy was this guy overrated!!!
He also beat Glen Johnson... Vanderpool and Echols are pretty underrated and good wins. The rest are pretty lame. Overrated? No.
Hopkins didn't have any other ATG type middleweight to fight, no Hearns or Hagler, but he did fight the best at 160 and he cleaned out the division.
I'm actually gonna agree he was massively overated but really matured his craft in his later years and earnt the respect he has now as well as the status he has. The problem is the fans who talk about his prime years @ MW when really all he did was beat on smaller guys and loose (questionably) to JT. They tend to think he had the skillset, experience & mindset of TODAY back then...which he did not. Physically he matured 7-8 years ago. Mentally he matured 2-3 years ago & that's a fact. Hopkins fans cannot have it both ways. Calzaghe was quicker and stronger when younger but lacked the experience he had in his later years as well which he needed; Hopkins of Today would have eaten the Joe of 5-6 years ago and the same of Calzaghe today facing Hopkins of 5-6 years ago. It's scary how alike these two. The only defining difference between them is Hopkins is a loud mouthed disrespectful racist whereas Calzaghe was just loud mouthed & disrespectful.
i'm not b-hops biggest fan but he does tend to get his tactics right, providing the fight goes to plan, arguably you could say that he doesn't adapt if things are going wrong, but none the less he always turns up with a good game plan and tactics.
All he did at middleweight was lose to JT? Uhh no. He unified the division, and most of his victories were by KO.
When you cut your opponent workrate and are able to do so by picking and choosing your counter shots, that is tactically phenomenal simpleton.