Bernard Hopkins - How great?

Well, he'd been retired for 7 years when he was at the age Hopkins was when he lost to Taylor. For my part, I have a hard time seeing Hopkins reasonably close to his best losing to a WW coming out of 3 year retirement, which he spent mainly sniffing coke.

Hopkins did face the two best WWs of his era and soundly defeated both. No former LW, way past his prime, made him look foolish either.

 

Not a great fighter. Very boring. The kind of fighter that detracts from the sport. He wins but is hard to watch.

 

true but selective phrasing.another way of putting it is that a rusty, 12 month off hagler BARELY lost to one of the 20 greatest fighters of all time who had a perfect strategy.


hopkins beatdown of tito is boner-inspiring. oscar was no middleweight simple and that win means about as much as monzon's over napoles. duran is one of the best fighters ever and his fight plan to was amazing. i don't see hopkins doing any better...he'd be in with someone with a better lead/overhand right than his own, better movement, patience and fantastic defense

 

Duran was able to fight 5 weight classes past his best weight, whitaker was able to fight all the way up to 154, leonard fought all the way up to 168, but hagler wasn't meant to move up, sorry not buying it. Hagler was a great fighter but to me, if I were to rank the 5 best fighters from 1960 and onwards, hagler wouldnt even get a mention. Ali and Duran are far greater than him, leonard, whitaker and pac rank higher, as does napoles for me. Roy Jones would beat marvin at any weight class. I would also rank carlos ortiz above him.

 

i may not agree with you but it was a pleasure as always sir :good

 

Of course not. Still doesn't make 40 a virgin age. 40 is old for a top athlete any way you twist it.

And it's hardly like Hagler was a ring wreck himself when he lost to Leonard. He was about the same age, but with less fights, as a certain former LW was when he gave Hagler some trouble.

We don't know really what version of Hagler a 40-year old Hopkins would translate into, and how that version of Hagler would do against Taylor. But we do know that Hopkins at no stage in his career had trouble with former LWs past their prime or lost to former WWs coming off long lay-offs.

 

...

 

I was phrasing it the way everyone was phrasing it at the time. Hindsight and Hagler worship has rephrased it in some places, but I'm not terribly impressed by that.

That you call Hagler "rusty" in this context is quite hilarious. Just wished more people here saw the joke.

Duran was nothing special as a MW. Not only Benitez and Hearns, but also Laing had previously handled him far easier at 154. If Hopkins had had similar problems with, say, the Whitaker that faced Tito we wouldn't hear the end of it. Or even the Whitaker that faced DLH. It would be taken as a water tight proof that only the extremely shitty state of the MW division made Hopkins able to dominate it.

Even much more so than is currently the case. But for Hagler it's put forth as one of his better wins.

 

:good

 

Dont forget that duran actually won like 5-6 rounds against hagler, pretty sad. Hagler gets more credit for beating little guys than any other fighter in the history of the sport.

 

solid but not inspirational

how good you are in any industry is marked by how memorable you are

he does have longevity that others didnt have

 

This comes across as a critical somewhat negative post, but I think you rate him as high as anyone, my man. No one really claims he deserves better than 30-50. I'll still pick him over Cleverly, btw, if that actually goes down.


Also: Mayweather - fine, whatever, fine...but **** that De la Hoya ****. :deal

 

He got better as he aged and picked up the level of opposition as he aged...His move up in weight proved to be a positive one....I rate him an ATG but I felt he lost clearly to Calzage...the older version very schooled would give trouble to the best but loses to the top 5- top 10...pulls out a few good wins while at it but loses to the best

 

Don't buy it all you like, means jack squat. It's a commonly accepted common sense notion that Hagler's height and body type weren't suited to him putting on another stone in weight whether you agree or not. Unlike Duran, Hearns, Leonard and Hopkins. Not all fighters are physically the same funnily enough, and God like geniuses such as Duran and Pea are hardly a normal barometer anyway. Still, if Hagler had had the luxury of moving up to face someone a champion as historically mediocre as Tarver and not an ATG master like Spinks, he might have entertained it.

Out of the career/mainly career middleweights, I'm struggling to think of one who could step up to 175 and have anything like a fair chance against Spinks. You're the first person I've heard slag Hagler off for not fighting him and that speaks for itself. Marv knew where his ceiling was, like Monzon did when he didn't tackle Foster, Galindez or Conteh and like Robinson did when he didn't tackle Moore (yeah, I know he fought feather-fisted Maxim, which is my point). And like Hopkins did when he never bothered to tackle Jones a second time when it mattered despite them being a similar size, which seems to have bypassed you.

Hagler paid his dues for years on his way up, probably for relative peanuts. It took a ****load of toil for him earn the title and the division was full of solid, worthy challengers to keep him occupied as well as potential blockbusters against Hearns, Duran, Benitez, Curry or Leonard should they choose to challenge him, with Tommy, Ray and Don being physically well suited to do so. Why challenge Spinks for financial **** all only to get your block knocked off? Don't bother answering, that was a rhetorical question. It's called high risk/low reward, or futility in this particular case and doesn't affect Hagler's legacy negatively, especially when he ruled all and sundry with an iron fist.

I agree that all the fighters you mentioned are greater than Hagler. They're greater than Hopkins too.

Can we leave it at that?