Bernard Hopkins vs Bob Foster

And was much smaller. Again, why was he so cautious against Taylor?

 

Foster was losing to journeymen at that age.

 

Foster was clearly superior at 175. Hopkins is likely cagey enough to see the final bell..... Probably

 

Ik not going to predict a knock out. But i do predict foster ****s Hopkins up.

 

Hopkins losses against Taylor and low output were as much a case of a guy outstaying his welcome in a weight division as anything else. He had started to be quite conservative in his output to offset this. Having said that both results were controversial and a scorecard poll after the first fight favored Hopkins 17 to 2 with two calling it a draw. Hopkins threw almost 100 more punches against Tarver, a better and bigger fighter. Most of them were power punches. He threw 100 more against Pavlik than he did against Tarver. Moving up invigorated him and freed the shackles. I have no doubt he would have pumped Taylor a couple of years prior.

Having said that no career (or mostly career) middleweight is going to beat Bob Foster. He's probably got the best jab in the history of the division and he is at least a top 5 puncher there, if not numero uno. I think Hopkins may be canny enough to go the distance and i think he'd land some excellent flush punches but it would be too fleeting. Bob has too much going on for any middleweight - period.

 

Not sure if you qualify them, but Harry Greb and Bob Fitzsimmons would beat Foster and probably badly so.

 

To be honest with the lack of footage available and era they fought in i have little idea of what they could or couldn't do H2H and i don't think anyone else could make an overly informed call either.

If i had to put my life on it i would go Foster to beat them both. Foster is miles bigger than Greb (and a lot bigger than Ruby too for that matter) and i really can't see Harry winning.

It's a huge huge leap of faith to pick either, and i mean huge.

 

Greb is tough indeed, but his resume speaks for itself. He also beat bigger fighters than Foster like Gunboat Smith or Bill Brennan, real heavyweights. Foster didn't accomplish anything at HW.

To pick Foster over Fitzsimmons you have to assume that he fought in very very bad era though. Foster is taller and longer than Fitz but he was even lankier than Robby. Fitzsimmons fought regulary in 170 lbs range, that's not much less than Foster. What is more important is that Fitz fought tons of heavyweights and he was KO-ed only by one man in his prime - Jeffries. He fought many fighters who were much bigger than Foster and he destroyed most of them within 6 rounds. You could KD him, but he was extremely durable and he didn't lose his mind under pressure. He was willing to take punishement to fight back. Foster reacted to HW punches really bad. Yesterday I watched his fight with Terrell (not a huge hitter by any means) and despite good first round, Foster couldn't fight with Ernie for long. He looked hurt even when Terrell threw non-power punches. He couldn't take punishement and he got KO-ed even though Terrell didn't do that much damage on him. Fitz would never lose in that way. You had to destroy him, otherwise he'd come back and fight. Not to mention that it's fair to assume that Fitz hit harder than most heavyweights Foster fought. How would he react to lethal body shots? Fitz wouldn't play jabs game with him.

Foster hit hard, very hard. Did he hit harder than Maher, Choynski, Sharkey? I'm not so sure and none of them could KO Fitz. For what it's worth, Foster's power didn't seem to bother heavyweights he fought.

 

I understand where you are coming from and i absolutely get your point but it's too much of a leap for me. Greb beat Smith at the end of his career and he'd been racking up losses for some time. To be honest i don't place much faith in the vast majority of the era's heavyweights and i think foster would have carved Brennan and Smith up.

When you've got middleweights beating heavyweights the heavyweights certainly aren't the pinnacle of the divisions history.

 

Yes, Greb didn't beat any very good HW. I agree, but then again Brennan is not really worse than Terrell, Folley or Doug Jones. Foster lost to them all and he was in his prime then.

Fitz beat basically all relevant HWs of his era outside of Jeffries. He didn't face Goddard but there is very little doubts that he would beat him. You can argue that 1890s were worse than 1960s, but Fitz beat too many elite HWs to think it's only a matter of competition.

 

We have no idea exactly how good Brennan is. I reckon those three would be every chance of beating him.

A guy that was a middle/ small light heavy beating almost all the relevant heavies tells me plenty. They may have been "elite" for their era but i don't think they would have cut it later personally. That's just my take.

 

We have his fight against Jack Dempsey on film, he doesn't look bad at all. Those three could beat him, of course but reverse is also true. My point is that Greb beat one HW fighter that was similar in terms of ability to the three that Foster lost.

It should tell you a lot about Fitz, not about HWs. I mean, he was the only middleweight who was relevant in 1890s HW division. The next smallest ones are Choynski and McCoy but they weren't middleweights, they were about the same size as Patterson who fought in 1960s. Fitz was special, you shouldn't discredit all era because he had success on it.

 

There are some fighters than have a series of skills that make them spoilers, guys hard to look good against .. they are excellent defensively, seem to move in different spaces and zones ... Jack Johnson, Jimmy Young, Chris Byrd, Pernell Whitaker are some .. Hopkins is another ... I'm not a fan of his really in or out of the ring but he was a master at this .. that said, in a H2H at 175 I like Foster who had the height, the reach, his own excellent speed and the power .. Foster gets a bit misunderstood because of a few early career losses to Jones ( an pretty badass under rated fighter himself ) and Terrell (bigger , stronger heavyweight and gutsy as hell ) but he was very inexperienced at that time fighting at heavyweight against very good much more experienced guys .. I"m pretty sure against Jones he took the fight on very short notice. AS far as the losses against prime Frazier and a terrific Ali, very , very few beat either of those guys ... Anyway , at his best, say the 1968 vintage , Foster was a devastating fighter at 175 .. my pick, Foster and a stoppage is possible.

 

You're overestimating the size difference. Foster weighed in in the low 180s for several heavyweight bouts. Hopkins entered the ring a pound or two under 170 for several middleweight bouts.

 

Not saying he wins this, but Hop has the perfect style to beat Foster