Bernard Hopkins' aggressive domination of Glen Johnson

From beginning to end Ottke's title "reign" was punctuated by biased refereeing, corrupt judging and outright cheating.

-Brewer, beat him clearly, 16-12 is generous to Ottke.
-Johnson beat him clearly
-Mitchell, daylight robbery, I think one judge had it it 117-112 for Mitchell, which seemed fair. The other two somehow scored it for Ottke.
-Robin Reid, one of the worst robberies in the modern times. This is the fight, I think, that caused a lot of fans to really 'hate' him; phoney judging is one thing, patent collusion between referee and hometoen 'fighter' is another; sickening to watch. Reid deducted a point for landing a jab.

Another Ottke-crime that isnt much known about is his win over Thomas Tate. Tate cuts him with a punch, the fight is stopped. TKO win for tate, right? No, referee bizarrely rules it a headbutt, it goes to the cards. Big surprise, Ottke is ahead on all the judges cards.

 

Ottke-Brewer was close - I had it 115-113 Ottke.
If Johnson won that fight than Holyfield clearly won his first fight with Lewis too.
Ottke-Mitchell - another close fight, I had it for Mitchell but it was at Ottke´s hometown and he was the champ. No robbery but controversial.
Ottke - Reid - agreed. Ottke was clearly past his best then and only fought a "good-bye-fight" affterwards.
Ottke-Tate was a headbutt. If it was intentional I don´t know.

Boy, I won´t argue with you. It´s obvious you aren´t worth my time.

 

Garbage.

The first Brewer fight was the worst and most dubious.Some others like Larsen were ervy close, but there were no other robberies until the disgraceful Reid Refereeing.

Mitchell and Johnson got handled.

And lets be clear it was the ref with reid.Reid was ****ing crap, in fact both men looked terrible and on the way out.

 

Thank you for posting the excellent footage ... I have never seen it before ... Johnson was no journeyman. He twice gave Tarver hell and destroyed Jones ... it was a huge win for Hopkins ...

 

Hopkins was entirely unique in the sense that he could fight particularly well aggressively and defensively.

From his early, cleverly constructed demolitions to his measured, economical decisions, Hopkins aging body ran in harmony with his tactical alterations. The problem now is he fights at a crawl - all the fantastic feints and posture is there, but the execution of it is super shy and destroyed his chances against Calzaghe.

Against Johnson, Hopkins looked insurmountable - fantastic boxing/slugging and all the gas to see it to the very end.

 

If Peter Manfredo improves to the point where he wins a belt in 2012, does it mean that we can retroactively make him world class for when he fought Calzaghe, too?

 

He was a nobody at the time of the fight, didn't even become a world class fighter until late in his career, when he was able to hold his own with other fighters on the way out and those who'd already beaten those on the way out.

 

If Johnson was so great he should have dealt with Woods more convincingly over three fights. I must admit I happened to have Johnson beating Woods in their third fight, although it was close.

I'm not taking anything away from Hopkins' victory as Johnson is a very good fighter, just not great.

 

Nobody said he was great. But he fought for the title at mw and smw and won it at lhw. And he fought the who is who of his time there, never avoided a challenge. He was/is worldclass.

 

Not at the time of the Hopkins fight he wasn't, sure as hell. In recent years having built up the experience and switched his style up you could say that, but definitely not the punching bag that Hopkins beat up.

 

Well I'm just highlighting the fact he wasn't 'great'. No question that he's a world class operator. He beat a better Tarver than Hopkins did, thats for sure. His fight with Tarver was a lot closer, SD I think. I'm a Hopkins fan and he was brilliant against Tarver. The weight making problems Tarver had can't be ignored, but I tend to look at things before the first bell rang. Hopkins was marked down for the graveyard. And I myself never thought he would win.

 

He got a shot at the world title that´s enough to be considered worldclass. Yeah, he was beaten badly when he stepped up against a future great, does that mean he was bad? Not in my oppinion.

 

Johnson had only been a professional for 4 years prior to tackling Hopkins. And he was also seen as a banger at the time, although that diminshed somewhat after he stepped up his level of opposition. His later achievements make Hopkins' win look better than it was at the time.

 

He had never proved anything against any kind of decent opposition whatsoever and showed nothing in the fight other than that he could take a beating. The fact that he was given a title shot doesn't prove in any way he was world class, it more or less just goes to show how weak most of Hopkins's opposition was at MW, which is why I laugh when it's compared to the likes of Hagler's and Monzon's opposition. I'm sorry to those who feel that way, but all it proves is either absurd bias or a complete lack of knowledge.

Hopkins as a fighter is arguably on their level, his opposition on the other hand is not, definitely not at MW.