Who has the better middelweight resume, Hopkins or Hagler?

It was target practice for Pacquiao, a 147lbs Duran was skilled enough to deal with the speed and power of a SRL I think he'd manage to hang with 140lbs Pac also taking into fact it would be closer to his prime weight of 135lbs.

 

Headbanger: Oh, a bit OT but I could answer it I guess. I posted quite a long analysis a while ago. It's not easy to predict, but I think Hopkins's right hand (Hagler was susceptible to that) combined with Hopkins' very good chin, size and strength would be problems for Hagler to overcome. Duran and Leonard made Hagler look bad sometimes and I feel Hopkins' natural tendency to play counterpuncher would suit him here. Heck, even some of the moves Duran did with the right hand Hopkins (counter Hagler's southpaw jab with a step aside right) does too! The smaller Hagler would have had to lead and he wasn't as good at that as countering himself. Hopkin's wouldn't be bullied like Hearns and would be wise enough not to make it a brawl.

But yes, Hagler is more proven and would bring to the fight a punching arsenal that Hopkins hasn't seen the likes of before. He would really test Hopkins' defense and his chin and stamina will help him keep coming. Hopkins is just a nightmare for him stylewise I feel. It's all about styles. Hearns - who Hagler crushed - would give Hopkins huge problems for example and perhaps even win.

Canibus: Well, I respect your opinion but I think it was pretty much the same as the first actually. Taylor doing very little but Hopkins doing hardly anything the first six rounds. I scored the first round a draw (virtaually no punch connected), the next five for Taylor and the eleventh for him as well, which made him a winner on my card. Could've gone either way. Problem is, even though Taylor's been a little underrated lately Hopkins should have been able to find an answer.

Hagler would have - as he did against Hearns, Duran and even SRL (grinding him down later on when boxing the superior boxer did not work). I had Hagler winning that fight but have no qualms having SRL the winner. I have to respect the official verdict though since it's not an extreme robbery like Lewis-Holyfield, Whitaker-Chavez or Sturm-DLH.

Hopkins didn't adapt vs Calzaghe either (other way around), but that's another debate. That could factor against him against Hagler coming to think about it. Still, the style advantage of Bernard is too big.

 

It seems to me that Haglar had to fight better opposition on the way up.

 

Well, that's been done to death and I don't think I could convince you (nobody seems to want to change their mind on this one...)... But I don't think Hopkin' punching wasn't all that effective TBH. Granted, they were much cleaner. Grated, they were more eye-catching and made Calzaghe look foolish sometimes (end of round seven for instance).

But they did by NO MEANS prevent Joe from bossing the ring quite completely efter four round and did not lower hos work-rate. The pace was too high for Hopkins's and I think, if you watch his body language as well as his buying for time, you could see that he was not comfortable at all. Something in that prevents me from calling it really effective punching. Joe landed much more and made it his fight and Bernard didn't do much about it.

But lets not hijack the thread. I'd gladly do a round-by-round - even with video analysis - to back up what I'm saying. Some say that Joe only landed five meaningful punches, but I can think of five times more than that easily.

Unclean, ugly, light punches in scoring areas (of course) matters as well when the have an effect on you opponent - which I'd argue they had. The rounds were close, but with Calzaghe doing a little more most of the time.

But then again, the criteria is subjective. Effective punching matters to me more than clean ones. Take Margo-Cotto - I had Margo a going away winner. Sure, Cotto was making his head snap back regularly. But thay didn't affect Margo whereas Margaritos less clean punches made Cotto double over as early as in the second.

Volume matters of course too and Joe landed a LOT more. I think nobody could argue that. Hopkins' moments were just too scarce and didn't break the overall pattern of the rounds.

 

As much as I love BHOP, he lost BOTH fights.....

The first fight, I couldn't give Bernard ANY of the 1st 8 rounds, obviously he came on strong toward the end of that first fight.

 

Anyone ever hear of The Circle of Iron?

 

Exacty. He should have stopped Taylor the second time based on the way he got to him at the end of the first. Hopkkins power is underrated just like Mayweather's, Martinez', Dirrell's and just about every other "pure" boxer. Taylor's Right wasn't accurate and Hopkins could get inside and hurt him... So why wait?

 

*****, calm your sensitive ass down. just cuz you spend your whole life on boxerec.com doesn't mean everyone else knows so little about boxing that they have to base their arguments on that ****. have you ever even been in a real fight in your life? shut yo ***** ass up and go back to the european forums

 

you ever seen somebody wearing a shirt that says, "I'm the boss, my wife said i could be?" hopkins allowed joe to come forward and look like an idiot because he wanted to expose him for the fraud that he is. joe came forward, got hit at hopkins will, and didn't land ****. not really "bossing" anything. hopkins just was having fun. you could see him smiling on the breaks. it was too easy for him

 

so with all the points i raised, you couldn't counter any of them, you just sat typing on your stolen laptop, in your vile little crack den and waffled on about **** all