Bernard hopkins/Roberto duran

It seems to me that duran gets rated sky high just based on his win in montreal, after that he lost to all the great fighters but beat moore and barkley which was impressive but they are not greater fighters then pascal for example.
So basically duran has a great lightweight run-montreal win- 2 wins vs moore and barkley.
If leonard would have gotten the decision that night this thread would look way different I think.

 

Hopkins was underdog against Pavlik , Trinidad , Tarver and Pascal and put on clinics in all these fights

 

I'd say both those guys were better than Pascal in a P4P sense. Not to mention he was absolutely terrifying at Lightweight, and add Carlos Palomino and Pipino Cuevas to that as well, along with giving a prime Marvin Hagler a very close and competitive fight. Not to mention that Montreal, as overblown as it may sometimes seem, was a great win for a reason. He was the first man to dethrone Sugar Ray Leonard with a defeat moving up in weight, and doing it over 15 rounds of non-stop aggression and masterful boxing & inside work. With that prime ATG victory, going on to beat prime elites in their weight class past your best is far more impressive than Hopkins beating younger fighters who were either smaller, past their best, or hadn't faced elite competition yet.

Don't get me wrong, I love Hopkins and rate him higher than Pac, who I am also a fan of- but for me Duran has done more great quality work, if not consistent really good work like BHop.

 

Duran is a great contender for top 10 ATG Hopkins top 25.

 

I agree.

 

Duran is greater

Duran's lightweight reign is comparable with Hopkins at middle but Duran did so much more above his best weight and past his best years

 

Why people fail to realize exactly what Duran accomplished even before Montreal is beyond me. Before that fight, his career was already 12 years long, he was 72-1, avenged the only loss twice, never actually beaten within the lightweight limit, reigned as lightweight champion for 7 years making 12 defenses, 11 by knockout, and beating an outstanding list of opponents in Buchanan, DeJesus 2x, Palomino, Marcel, Villa, Kobayashi, Lampkin, Sazuki, Viruet 2x, Mamby, Thompson, etc.

Honestly, that's at least as impressive as Marvin Hagler's entire career. Everything in the 80's-90's was just icing on the cake - Wins over SRL, Barkley, Moore, Cuevas, Castro, giving prime Hagler his toughest challenge, the titles in 3 other divisions, etc. He's also as impressive as any fighter we have film of in his peak. The man has a great case for top 10 of all time. I love B-Hop, but he still probably doesn't crack the top 30.