Still good enough to beat this coward behind his double defense. But he won't stay more than 2 rounds against Golovkin. He should retire.
You clearly don't know **** about boxing. Hopkins's opposition suck ass. He fought Allen three times for Pete's sake.
:blood:blood:blood Martinez has one the best middleweight resume (wins at 160) since Hopkins left the division. Martinez has surpassed both Pavlik, Sturm, and Abraham (the top tier of middleweight of this last era) as middleweights, despite spending most of his career at welterweight and jr middle. The only one who can compete with him resume wise since Hopkins was king is Jermain Taylor.... and that's debatable.
Jr took his body. Chavez Jr ended Sergio Martinez. GGG happened? Gennady was not anywhere close to Sergio when Sergio fought Jr.
Jr? Martinez beat the hell out of him for 11 rounds. Got in BIG trouble and Jr still couldn't finish him.
Martinez may have looked like he'd slowed down against Murray, but thats more testament to how good Murray actually is. Martinez, even at 75% of his capability, is still top of the division.
You don't know much about the topic. If you did, you would know that the Robert Allen that Hopkins fought the first and second time, would likely have Sergio Martinez' title, if that version of Allen, fought today. Allen was a shadow of his former self the third time he fought Hopkins. Guys like Mathew Macklin, and Darren Barker, wouldn't even be top ten guys back then.
I don't really disagree with you. Barker, Macklin, Chavez Jr., and Murray were real middleweights. Macklin, Chavez Jr., and Murray were legit top ten contenders when Martinez fought them. Outside of fighting Taylor, and Martinez, Pavlik fought bums at 160. Outside of Hopkins and Pavlik, Taylor fought 154 pounders, and two of them, Spinks, and Wright, beat him but got robbed. While the third, Ouma, backed him up all night, and made him look like the overhyped HBO scam he was. That being said, you make it seem like there have been ten years of title holders since Hopkins left. There has basically been, Taylor, Abraham, and Pavlik, but I agree, Martinez is at least fighting comparatively(to Taylor, Pavlik, and Abraham) decent opposition. Taylor's resume is in the conversation, because of two controversial wins against Hopkins. I thought the first fight was a draw, and I thought Hops took the second one. Anyhow, Martinez' has the best resume at 160, comparing him to Abraham, Taylor, and Pavlik. My point in my other response was that Hopkins opposition at 160 was called average. Yet his opposition was much better than that of Martinez. Barker, Geale, Chavez Jr. and Macklin. Those guys wouldn't cut it, if they fought in Hopkins middleweight era. That is how weak middleweight is today.
Martinez has had too many injuries lately. He will fight a couple big money fights and retire.....................but he is still good fighter..........
I somewhat disagree. When comparing the era's of Hopkins and Martinez, Hopkins gets favored because, well... he was around so much longer, that one gets to pick from a larger pool of fighters to show the quality of challengers he had. And when you say 'They wouldn't cut it in Hopkins era', that's just revisionist history. Theres several mini eras of Hopkins reign where guys like Murray, Williams, and Barker would have done just fine until they faced Hopkins. Eastman Hoya Allen 3 Joppy Hakkar Daniels Were Hopkins last 6 fights before he lost his title. That spanned about 3 years. so taking those names... and comparing them to Murray Chavez Macklin Barker Dz Williams Im roughly the same amount of time, I honestly do think Martinez's comp is better. (Whether you are comparing Hopkins's last 6, or his first 6) Now, if we continue down the list, we will start picking up better names for Hopkins, and run flat out of Martinez's defenses. But really, aside from one span of 'era' for Hopkins, lets call it between his first fight with Allen, to the one with Tito, which was solid, theres no stretch of defenses (6 fight stretches, as to compare with Martinez's run) that really puts Martinez's to shame, imo. And to think that Eastman, or Allen3, or Joppy, or James, or the other half a dozen guys I could list.... are better than Murray or Williams? idk... I just don't see it. And that I could list a lot of guys that are, has as much to do with Hopkins having almost 3 times as many defenses to choose from as Martinez does. That's a credit to Hopkins, but hardly a fault when it comes to Martinez's resume. Hell, if one really wants to be fair, we can compare their first 6 defenses since picking up their titles. And Hopkins would lose that flat out. So really, all things considered (especially when comparing 6 fight stretches), I see no room for someone to single out Martinez as if hes taking on some unusually weak era of fighters, or that his middleweight reign isn't up to par. Especially should he fight G when he returns from his injury. Just imo One thing I will say though upon reflection, is it is truly amazing that Hopkins reigned supreme for so long. His overall resume no doubt is the best single division reign in recent history (imo) and he truly is a legend.