Another way to look at the "B-Hop only fought smaller men" theory...

Returning to the point at hand I think the following is fair to say

1) from 96 to 05 hopkins was the best middleweight in the world.

2) the two smaller men he gets criticism for were both unification fights.

3) tarver, calzaghe, orneleas(sp.) and pascal have spent most of their career in a higher division.

4) pavlik and wright were arguably the best middleweights at the time and were making a smaller jump than hopkins made whilst being higher rated p4p whilst making said jump.

This all equates to replacing "hopkins beat smaller fighters" with "hopkins unified the middleweight division".

I believe all that I posted there to be fact, unless you want to dispute pavlik and wright's status as top middleweights when hopkins fought them.

 

I understand exactly what you are saying, but I am going on what M Steward said, that Hopkins is a natural LHW and had to be very disciplined to stay at MW.
I do understand your point, but understand also that Hopkins has lived more disciplined to keep his weight down than most fighters, the fact that he had to remain so disciplined makes me agree he is not a natural at the weight although found a good fighting weight, due to being the bigger man in the ring most of the time (nearly all).
I made a mistake when I said Hopkins had been above MW 23 times its actually

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and

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. In his next fight it will be

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.
I gave some examples previously how Haye claimed to make CW, he had to remain ridiculously disciplined and by doing so, could make the limit, but Haye wasnt a natural CW, he much bigger and had to watch what he did and ate, like Hopkins at MW. Cotto had his first title fights at LWW, but did try experimenting at LW. Cotto wasnt a natural LW, but had to train hard to get down and stay down. Now we know Cotto was really probably a natural WW but could get down to LW if he was able to remain focused all year around

 

Hopkins is an ALL time Great. we need to appreciate him while he is still lacing them up.

 

STFU *****. You are a known Hopkins nuthugger, who thinks Hopkins is a hard done by secretly undefeated legend. Wrong. 8 times Hopkins hasnt been able to beat the opponent in front of him.
For Hopkins the legend, tell me how many times he has had to have time out in fights, how he has made a career fighting naturally smaller men and how there has been 8 times that this legend hasnt found a way to win.
Consider Hopkins couldnt beat J Taylor in 2 attempts, which Froch did at first ask or that Hopkins couldnt beat Pascal at first ask like Froch did, and Hopkins is a legend whilst Froch is a crude lucky champ with limited skills

 

anyone going to B Hop vs Dawson?

 

Bailey

 

Hops = better than both the people in your name combined.

 

failey doesnt watch boxing. he only uses boxrec for all his reference points

 

basically. that's why he thinks calslappy is the goat.