Bernard Hopkins - How great?

So what, he still took fights at higher weight. People love to give **** to modern fighters if they dont move up in weight, but we just let Hagler slide. Hagler NEVER beat a great middleweight, i doubt hagler would have fought Roy Jones, he knows he would lose.

 

1)true, but p4p they are both ahead of oscar and tito. none of them did much at mw at cept for tito's win over joppy. but yeah, small and relatively old scalps

2) with Robinson i have to disagree a bit...he's got wins over lamotta, basillio, fullmer, olsen, graziano, and a host of top contenders. that's 5 hall of famers right there, whose best work was done at middleweight. hopkins really doesn't have ANY wins at middle over great middleweights. robinson did split some of those fights but when you fight triliogies with elite fighters, it makes sense

3)hopkins cleaned out the division but taking out tito, his best wins may be against glen johnson, holmes and howard eastman. the division was weak and like wlad now, he's unfortunately suffering a bit for it

 

Moving up and fighting Tarver, Pavlik etc isn't nearly the same as moving up to fight Qawi or Spinks mate. Hopkins could have moved up earlier to chase a rematch with Jones if he wanted but I suspect he knew that he would've no more luck than he did first time around (where he didn't do too badly all things considered).

Regarding the 'modern fighters get **** for not moving up', I'd say it was the other way around: most of today's guys get flack for too much weight jumping and not cleaning divisions out. It isn't the be all and end all really.

I've no great love for Hagler either, superb though he was.

 

He still fought roy jones, which is a far bigger risk than anything hagler was willing to do. I wouldnt be shocked if hopkins outboxed qawi by staying on the outside, spinks was great, but the other light heavyweights from that era get overrated. Qawi is a fighter i like, but he never beat a good fighter in his prime, most of qawi's wins are over shot fighters, something that ESB tends to ignore. How do you know for certain that qawi would whoop tarver? hes never really beaten a peak fighter, im sure tarver would have stopped a shot saad muhammad, a shot leon spinks, and a shot mike rossman.

 

P4p Duran is the best of the lot, but he's far from a great MW. What they did at lower weight doesn't matter much for me, it's what they did at MW. And there they seem pretty even to me.

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He also have losses to everyone of those besides Graziano. The reason that he fought several fights against them is mainly that he lost the first fight. I do think it's impressive that he managed to stay a top MW in his late 30's, though.

And I don't see them as great MWs either. If they're remembered as such, it's because of they met Robinson.

You can say the same about just aboout any long reigning champion. Louis, Duran, Hagler - you name them.

Personally, I ALWAYS put great stock in dominating your division for a long period.

 

Griffith was fairly accomplished at Middle, but yeah, he was older and smaller. Still, the first fight is a wonderful win. Napoles isn't worth too much though. Massive size difference there.

Valdez is Monzon's top victim. A better middleweight than anyone Hagler or Hopkins beat, without question in my mind. Monzon was at the end of his career and up against his heir. Handling him twice is really impressive stuff. On the whole, I'd rate his competition just a tad higher than that of Hop & Hag, and the whole bit about him never once losing after hitting his stride makes a difference. 80-fight unbeaten streak, or there about. Finishing your career like that is something else. He was a monster, too, and a brilliant one at that. Terrible, terrible guy to overcome for anyone his own size or smaller.

He belongs at the top of the heap at 160.

 

the difference for me is that most long reigning champions have a lot of filler competition with some great wins thrown in the mix.

louis has baer, walcott, conn, schmeling, etc.
duran has dejesus and buchanan (his 135 reign didn't have a ton of greats either)
hagler's reign has sibson, antefurmo, hamsho, and mugabi. add in hearns and duran and it's damn solid.

i would personally put most of hopkins competition a step behind hagler's but he has that consistency and as many have noted, being consistent for that long a period is EXTREMELY difficult and requires a long of skill. even against C+/B- competition, being undefeated for 20+ defenses is remarkable.

he just lacks true quality on his resume and the best middle he fought, jones, clearly beat him.

i guess i also just rate robinson's reign and his era much higher than you; difference of opinion and all

 

Just a cursory glance at an old boxing mag, circa '73-'74, to read of all the experts in the game that thought napoles would be "too much" for Monzon would be worth reading (if you could get your hands on one of those old mags). The prevailing thought was that Naploes would make Monzon look like a slow, clumsy cigar store Indian, and win going away. Really, there have been heavyweight matches with a bigger disparity in height, weight and reach than Monzon-Napoles. mantequilla overreached against the bigger, superior man, but so many, including Angelo Dundee and Gil Clancy thought that he could pull it off.

 

Top Ten Middleweight.

Grossly overestimated in his own era. History will even that out. But still, among the best ever in the division. Top Ten.

 

Griffith aged brilliantly and was still a world class middle when Monzon thrashed him in their first fight. I think he was coming off a 10 fight winning streak. He has the likes of Benvenuti, Archer x2, Tiger x2, Briscoe, Gypsy Joe Harris, Mims, Stanley Hayward and a slew of other contenders on his CV and was the former undisputed champion. You could say he wasn't the biggest middleweight but he wasn't massively small either and was able to hold his own up close with Dick Tiger, who many think was the strongest middleweight ever.

Monzon's wins over him, another excellent fighter in Benvenuti, Valdez x2 are better than anything on Nard's middleweight ledger for me, plus he had practically no filler on his record from winning the title onwards. Unbeaten for 13 years himself too.

You're right about Napoles to a large degree but he still put forth a terrific effort and had some success before Monzon beat him down. I wouldn't rule against him winning a strap at middle in some eras, tiny though he would have been.

 

That's fine if they thought he could pull it off. They we're obviously way, way wrong. Maybe Monzon wins even if they were the same size, but the actual match up saw Monzon with an unfair advantage.


I'd pick most decent Middleweights over Napoles, nevermind arguably the best one ever. Not any better, or maybe even as good, as Hagler's win over Duran or Hopkins' win over De La Hoya.

 

Hagler came up through a far tougher middleweight division than Hopkins and had to wait ages to get his shot before going into the lion's den to face a good champion and winning dominantly before being showered in all kinds of abuse for doing so. He took plenty of risks. He was also 5'9 and had every possible pound packed into his frame; his body just wasn't suited to moving up, much less against a killer like Spinks. Even against the stronger middles like Minter, Sibbo, Vito, Briscoe, Hamsho etc he gave ground. Hopkins is about 6'0/6'1 and was able to gain weight far more effectively with the help of Shilstone.

Can't agree with you about Qawi, I don't think the old version of Hopkins would have touched him with a barge pole. His legs were far too diminished and he was more of a clever, scrappy spoiler at that stage imo, which isn't the way to go against Qawi whatever you think of him. I've already said I don't think Hops would have hung around at 175 if there were more world class fighters there, and I'll stick with that.

Jones is undoubtedly a great fighter in retrospect but can you say he was viewed that way at the time? If Hopkins was that much of a risk taker, why not pursue Jones when they were both at their respective peaks when it would have made mega bucks and settled the score? Instead of having a series with Robert Allen?

Anyway, I get the impression we're only going to go in circles here so we'll agree to disagree.

 

Hopkins will go down as greater than Monzon or Hagler, with it being so recent with all the sceptics the focus is on the negative, all the negatives of Hagler and Monzon's reigns seem forgot and all the focus is now on their positives

I'd also say Hopkins opponents are considered poor because they don't have the greatest records but that was because Hopkins was knocking them off. Vanderpool for instance performs much better than Pavlik or Trinidad against BHOPs winning the first 4 rounds, but won't be remembered as a greater middleweight than them

I didn't get the joke BE???? WTF, where is it, I just can't see the joke, oh wait it's picking a 39yo Hagler over Jermaine Taylor?? Oh and rating DLH over him, that's a good one

 

co the **** sign. i gave taylor both by a round. could hopkins have won? sure but he didn't. and they were not robberies but close fights turned into taylor wins by hopkins inability/apathy/distain for throwing punches. taylor won by wanting it more and throwing punches to take close rounds

hopkins is very very good. even great. but he showed his ceiling against jones, losing by a fair margin. then by thrice getting outworked in winnable fights against taylor and then calzaghe. for the smartest fighter in the game or whatever, he sure hasn't learned his ****ing lesson. pascal held him to a (disputed) draw by doing the same ****ing thing

 

Baer was terribly unskilled, Conn was 167 lbs when he faced Louis. Smaller than most MWs today. That you even name those fighters shows that there isn't that much to find. Still I rate Louis' reign tremedously.

Don't think Sibson, Antefurmo and Hamsho looked like that much. Don't see how they would stand a notch above Joppy, Holmes and Echols for example. Hearns and Duran more or less equals Tito and DLH in my book. The difference is that neither Tito or DLH took Hopkins the distance Personally, I can't see Hopkins looking that bad against a past-prime, blown up former LW.

The Duran win doesn't elevate his standing in my eyes. It rather asks the question how he would do if he met more skilled boxers, which he really didn't face that many of.

Mugabi clearly was a dangerous opponent, though. Perhaps better than anyone of the above. But as I said, there isn't much in it. We're really splittting hairs here.

True, but Jones was phenom, though. And Hopkins gave him one of his best fights when still in his physical prime. Sure beats losing to Willie Monroe.

Think that era is very overrated. And Robinson is overrated as a MW. Not as a p4p fighter, though. He was something else, after all.