Hypothetical fight: Hopkins vs Pacman Pacquiao at a catchweight below 160

Manny would have had no realistic chance of beating Bernard.

He also wasn’t on another level to Oscar either.

We all know that Oscar was done when they fought. His body didn’t respond to the cut.

Both Freddie Roach and Floyd Mayweather Snr, both expected Oscar to rehydrate by anything up to 14 pounds. Yet after not making WW for about 9 years, he only rehydrated by just 2.

He looked ill at the weigh-in.

So that fight can’t be used as a barometer for anything.

Bernard and Manny both fought very different versions of Oscar.

 

BHop is all wrong for Manny for everu reason...BHop fighting in 1st weight class and Manny in...9th weight class.

Its silly.

Prime DLH versus 08-09 Manny is intriguing. IDK who takes that

 

ODLH hadn't fought at Welterweight for a decade when he fought Pacquiao he was a weight drained zombie with nothing to offer.

People like to criticise Mayweather but he did beat a considerably better version of ODLH than Pacquiao did that's for sure.

As for ODLH losing to Trinidad and Mosley x2 are you for real ? I refuse to believe you've sat down and scored those fights.

There's no way Trinidad beat ODLH at best he got a draw but more than likely he lost 7-5.

ODLH clearly beat Mosley the 2nd time 8-4 or 7-5 that's not even up for debate that was a clear robbery.

 

Utterly insane. B-Hop mangles Pacman. (though I'm not sure he could even drain to sub 160)

 

B-Hop got under the 160lb limit a fair few times. Against ODLH he came in at 156 and came in at 157 against Tito, both times when he was pushing 40. Hopkins didn’t even put on that much weight after the weigh-ins according to the HBO ring-weights. He wasn’t that big for 160 (he wasn’t small either ofc) but it’s not inconceivable that he could squeeze down to 154, especially in his younger years. Even still though, he’d be way bigger than Manny on top of being an awful style for him.

 

Ah, right you are...goddamn, he was/is such a faithfully disciplined gymrat. Comfortably under the limit many times, now that I'm looking (Eastman, DLH, Allen I-III, Hakkar, Daniels, Trinidad, Holmes, Echols I-II, Vanderpool, Jackson, James, Frank, Mercado I-II, Jones I, Baptiste, Powell - it was actually just a slight minority that he came in bang on the nose at 160lbs or as close as one quarter pound)

Yeah any of those versions of him murders Pacquiao. Easily.

 

Oh yeah, and any version of Manny beats any version of Oscar. Manny is an awful style for Oscar. The whole reason Freddie Roach took that fight is because he saw Ivan Calderon whoop Oscar in sparring and Oscar himself admitted to Freddie that he hates dealing with small southpaws. So when Freddie had possibly the best southpaw of all time, the fastest southpaw of all time, and one who was smaller than Oscar and had the opportunity to fight him, he jumped at the chance to make that fight.

 

I don’t think that we have enough evidence to suggest that no version of Oscar could ever have beaten Manny.

 

Asking who has the best resume between Oscar and Manny, is debatable.

Quite interesting actually.

 

We have 8 rounds of Manny beating the **** out of him, the testimony of Oscar himself saying that he hates fighting guys who have Manny's style, and we have Oscar struggling repeatedly against the scant amount of the southpaws he fought in his career (notably Whitaker, Bredahl, and Pac). In fact, in the post-fight interview against Bredhl, Oscar said "no more lefties," and, apart from an over the hill Camacho and Sweet Pea (who he probably should have lost to), Oscar and his management largely stuck to that as a rule for how to match Oscar. ODLH was massively reliant on his left hand and only really used his right hand as a combo filler, he didn't have a well-developed right hand and, as such, tended to struggle against southpaws (hence why he avoided them). No version of Oscar beats any version of Manny, especially the one who was absolutely on fire when he ripped through Oscar.

 

Dela Hoya was able to land on B-hop because of his reach, Pac`s arms and height would be too short to take on someone B-hop`s size and defensive ability.

 

Hopkins TKO

 

At 156lbs, Hopkins slaughters him, Pacquiao would be hideously dwarfed and Hopkins is actually better technically IMO, Pacquiao is more athletic, but Hopkins IQ is higher.

 

Also, this gets forgotten, but Hopkins could WHACK at middleweight.