Better Legacy: Hopkins or RJJ

Personally, I don't know if the bhop Tarver win is the single best win between them, but imo the fact that Tarver beat RJJ 2-1 in their fights, making the overall matchup a loss for Roy, and also (imo) exposed RJJ as a one trick pony with a glass jaw in decline by KHTFO in their second fight, and almost doing the same in the third fight, makes Bhops sole win over Tarver, in which he knocked Tarver down, a very notable and significant win. Tarver was the beginning of the end or perhaps the end for Roy. It began his run of a string of losses and mulltiple KOs and TKOs. For bhop, Tarver was a very good dominating win and was followed by more success.

I think Bhop has followed a pretty normal trajectory in his career. He was always good but he generally improved as he got older and gained experience. He is an extreme example of this of course. RJJ just basically fell apart suddenly starting in '03/'04 and he has gotten worse with a majority of his 9 losses T/KO's. He is also an extreme example imo but of course in the opposite direction. RJJ went from what some consider one of the greatest with dazzling reflexes to suddenly making people wince with embarassingly terrible performances. From what some would call one of the best to the most bludgeoned almost overnight.

 

That's correct.

But that's just one factor to consider.

 

teemy,

Bernard's win over Tarver was not better than any of Roy's wins, especially if he was drained by the weight loss.

Roy's win over Tarver was more significant. Because Roy had to burn muscle to make weight, and it was the number 1 and 2 fighters of the division squaring off against each other. Also, Roy made history by dropping back from HW to reclaim the LHW belts.

You need to take a lot of things into account when you an*lyse a win or someone's resume. I agree with Mind Reader, whilst it was a great win for Bernard, there were no titles at stake, and I think that Roy faced the better version of Tarver.

Very true. And this needs to be discussed objectively, but along with everything else that I've mentioned.

Go and read my post to Rumsfield.

Roy was constantly on the move looking for the biggest fights, (despite what the haters think) whilst Bernard was content to repeatedly defend his IBF, MW title, until King put together his MW. Tournament.

That was SIX years of fighting whoever was put in front of him.

Think about that for a moment.

He only became ambitious AFTER he'd lost to Taylor twice in 2005. Which also meant that he remained at MW for a further 4 years AFTER he'd won the MW tournament. And within that period, he'd refused to fight Roy in a huge fight at a CW. Yet you guys are praising him for all of his achievements. It's an absolute joke to be honest.

Sure he gets credit for being able to fight all throughout his 40's. But it just isn't enough to rank him ahead of Roy. Roy was the one who fought in 4 weight classes. Roy is the one who moved on to new things when he couldn't get what he wanted. Roy is the one who looked for challengers while he was prime. Roy could have held on to one his belts and stayed at SMW or LHW for years. But he didn't.

Roy achieved more, and if you evaluate all of the circumstances and factors that are involved, then he has a better resume.

It's just sickening how people are completely dismissing Roy's complete domination of Ruiz, whilst trying to tell everybody how great the Winky win at 170 was, and how great the Pascal win was.

It's madness.

 

You've answered your own question. Hopkins dominated Tarver in a way RJJ never did even with 3 attempts, which is why Hopkins win over Tarver is more impressive. RJJ did win the first fight but only just and it was as much of a case of Tarver losing the fight with his inactivity as Jones Jr winning it.

Tarver looked slow because he doesn't cope well with movement. If you look at his style he prefers to stand still and wait for counter opportunities it was more a matter of styles rather than Tarver being worse, it's why Dawson schooled him as well, he can't handle movement.

I'd disagree about Hopkins being a natural light heavyweight. He had to hire Mackie Shilstone to bulk up just like Spinks and Holyfield did when they jumped up to heavyweight. That combined with his low in ring weights and the fact he only weighted 4lbs above the light heavyweight limit in his last fight suggests he's never been a natural light heavy more a big middleweight or natural super middle.

Hopkins looked better at light heavyweight than middleweight due to a loss of speed and work rate. Fact is he was aging, he wasn't struggling to make middleweight coming in at 169lbs with his fights with Taylor but his loss in hand speed and work rate was effecting his performance. By moving up against bigger, slower less active light heavies he was able to prolong his career, had he stayed at middleweight I'm sure he wouldn't have been as successful as he was later in his career.

I'd agree it's a matter of styles. Hopkins would have always given Tarver nightmares and given Jones Jr some problems. Doesn't change the reality that it's still a better win for Hopkins though.

 

He didn't move up because he didn't need to. He wasn't struggling at the weight though he was heavier than he had been earlier in his career. The losses to Taylor made him realise he couldn't cope with speed of faster middles anymore as he had gotten slower so his best option was to move up against bigger but slower fighters.

It's been debated to death why the fight didn't happen in 2002. Hopkins believed he deserved 50/50 while Roy wanted 60/40, they couldn't agree so the fight wasn't made. Yet when he did move up he fought the guy that had KO'ed RJJ and did so without the need of a tune up at light heavy, that's impressive.

Maybe the weight loss effected Tarver just like the weight loss may have effected Toney when he fought RJJ. We can speculate but only Tarver and his team know for sure. Also Tarver does struggle with movement, he's a very static boxer and doesn't move much so a agile fighter like Hopkins I believe would always give Tarver nightmares.

When I said many of Hopkins wins were comparable I meant anyone besides Toney and Ruiz of course as I had stated before that Ruiz was his best win.

Sure Hopkins fought Pavlik and Wright at a catch weight but lets not forget Hopkins was a former middleweight not some natural light heavy that stepped into the ring in the high 180's like Tarver, Kovalev etc and RJJ wasn't a stranger to catch weights himself when he fought Grant at 172lbs at least Hopkins was willing to go lower than RJJ did when he dragged a guy up.

When he fought Wright it was only his 2nd fight at light heavy and Wright had just given Taylor all he could handle. So Hopkins basically had the advantage of fighting 1 fight more at a higher weight than Wright, Hopkins wasn't some seasoned light heavy he had only just moved up himself. It was a good win as reflected by the close odds going into the fight and the fact it was a competitive fight.

Pavlik was at catchweight but it was at his normal in ring weight. He weighted 170lbs in the ring in his previous fight with Lockett so it's not like Pavlik was fighting far above his normal weight. He was only 4lbs heavier in the ring and Hopkins only had a 6lbs weight advantage coming in at 180lbs, once again proving Hopkins was never a true light heavyweight and of course Hopkins was 43.

Your right about the Tarver win for Roy that was better than most of Hopkins wins but not better than Hopkins win over Tarver which was far more decisive or as good as Hopkins beating Tito. Also Hopkins win over Pascal is not much worse than RJJ beating Tarver, Pascal did beat Dawson a guy that schooled Tarver twice though of course Tarver was past his best which is why it's not as good as Roy beating Tarver.

 

Hopkins wouldn't have had much of a legacy of it weren't for Jones the way he avoided him allowed him to milk his title run at MW ..All this nonsense sense that he moved up because he stuglled with weight is bs ..He started his career at lhw ..He just chose to stay out when the divisions north of his were hot !

There were a ton of fights to be made hell even in 02 he backed out of a fight with Calzaghe ..There is nothing that Hopkins did that elevated his career above Roy's it just lasted longer .

 

Well Bernard did dominate the guy that beat Roy twice - once by technical knock out and the other almost by knockout taking two out of three and basically wrecking Roy. He did that. And sometimes it's not what you do but what you don't do that can elevate something. For example, not getting KTFO every few fights turning a career into an embarassment is a kind of relative elevation when it is compared to the devaluation that happens as a result of this kind of fast and stunning decline. And some might argue it is his longevity that elevates him above RJJ. Longevity is a highly prized and valued attribute in many pursuits. Bhop's hard work, incredible skills and clean living no doubt has contributed to his longevity. Longevity ain't easy.

I'll state it again. Bhop beat and thoroughly dominated (118–109 by all judges with a knockdown) the guy that TKO'ed Roy and basically wrecked Roy since he was never the same after. Roy clearly has no such directly comparable win in his career since at a minimum Bhop has never been knocked out or been dominated so brutally and gone on to be KO'ed and lose so much by someone Roy has beat. It is a definitive man who beat the man who truly beat and TKO'ed the man type win situation. It speaks for itself. Bhop also TKO'ed Glen Johnson, the man that KO'ed Roy soon after his third beat down by Tarver.

Bernard also beat the truly legendary and at the time undefeated Tito Trinidad by TKO. He took his zero and did what no one thought possible. A truly epic win. He also beat Wright. He knocked out ODLH and was the only person to do so. He also humiliated the murderous punching and undefeated Kelly Pavlik who beat up on Taylor and took his zero. Beat Pascal and survived a fight with a much younger, highly skilled and even more murderous punching fighter that many think is very special and could be a true great himself. He is the oldest Champ ever. Considered to this day to be a highly skilled, crafty and intelligent fighter with a great chin. Never been TKO'ed or KO'ed. And he has a win against RJJ. His legacy is brilliant.

 

Brighton bomber,


This is a great debate, and I'm looking forward to Mind Reader's response to you.

Hopefully, he won't mind me replying to you with my thoughts first.

You can't ignore the factors that I've mentioned:

There's a good chance that Tarver was drained for Hopkins. Mackie Shilstone who helped prepare Bernard thought so.

Roy had to burn muscle in 2 months just to make weight for the first Tarver fight.

Roy was absolutely exhausted for the first time in 50 fights.

There were main titles at stake.

Again, Roy made history by dropping back from HW to reclaim the LHW titles.

It was the number 1 and the number 2 in the division squaring off against each other.

It was a much bigger fight.


Now people are completely overlooking everything I've wrote above, and are only rating the wins on the 'eye test'.

Again, he may also have looked slow and sluggish because of the weight. He took an awful lot of weight off.

http://ringtv.craveonline.com/news/168341-tarver-talks-hopkins-jones-klitschko-and-his-legacy

Here's an interview with Mackie:

Scroll down and read what he says about the sacrifices Bernard made, his weights, and his comments on him expecting Tarver to be flat.

http://www.boxingtalk.com/pag/article.php?aid=21645

Good points.

Again, it's not if you look deeper into it.

 

17-0-0-0 (KO 17) Roy Jones, then #1 contender at 154 lbs :smoke

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If they both would have retired at around 35 I'd have said RJJ but Hop has had some very impressive wins in the later stages of his career while Jones definitely hasn't. I don't like punishing a fighters rating for hanging on to long, so I don't think I'm punishing Jones, but if a fighter does hang around well into their 40's and goes up a division or two and wins, he certainly deserves credit for doing this, so it's more a case of Hop climbing the ATG list in his later years rather than Jones falling from the list. But H2h at there best I'd pick Jones hands down.

 

Brighton bomber,

He didn't need to move up?

Come on now.

This was a guy in his 30's, with no serious ambition. Bernard was content to repeatedly defend his IBF belt against whoever was put in front of him for over 6 years.

Look who was at MW during Bernard's reign.

Yet look who was at SMW.

Look who was at LHW.

Look at the sacrifices he had to make to remain at MW.

He's 6'1, with a 75" reach.

This is what fools like Rico just can't grasp: Yes, after over 6 years, he eventually obtained all of the belts including the linear title. But Roy could have done that. Roy could have stayed at SMW for 8 years defending his IBF belt, waiting for future opportunities to appear. But he didn't because he was more ambitious.

He couldn't unify the SMW division against Benn or Liles, so he moved up after just 2 years to go to LHW. When he'd unified LHW but couldn't fight Dariusz or Bernard, he then moved up to HW. But in this debate, he's getting punished for it. Because you've got guys like Rico quoting black and white stats saying: "Roy only collected belts, but Bernard was linear" Yet what he doesn't realise is: it was more of an achievement to beat Toney, then pursue other fights in the LHW and HW divisions, instead of hanging around like Bernard did for years waiting for something to happen. Yet he can't comprehend it.

Roy moving up to LHW to unify against naturally bigger guys was a bigger achievment than Bernard waiting to unify for 6 years, despite how it appears on paper. Roy's getting penalised for his ambition, whereas Bernard's getting praised for a lack of ambition, in the same way that Calzaghe does with his SMW statistics.

You can't just give him a pass. Not on this in depth debate to see who has the better legacy.

Bernard refused $6m and demanded $10m, even though he'd done all he could at MW. This was over 6 months after he'd won King's MW tournament. This was 9 years since he'd committed to being a MW. And after he'd turned down the opportunity, he spent a whole year out of the ring before coming back to fight Morrade Hakkar. So where was the guy who later became "The Alien" who had the b*lls to fight the likes of Dawson and Kovalev etc? He wasn't there. He didn't exist back then. He didn't do anything. And at that point, Roy had signed up to take on a 230 pound, top 5 HW. After which, he dropped back to fight the best LHW in the world in Tarver. Yet people are saying Bernard achieved more.

I absolutely love debating with guys like yourself. But everyone's glossing over the above factors, and are just quoting stats.

It's a fact that Bernard never took on anybody as remotely as dangerous as Kovalev when he was prime. He didn't want to know. But when he'd got nothing to lose and everything to gain, he then became the guy who suddenly wanted Tarver and Calzaghe etc.

That's not greatness.

Yeah, I've no doubt that Hopkins would always have presented him with huge problems stylistically.

Fair enough.

He wasn't a natural LHW, but he damn sure wasn't a natural MW either.

By this point, you'll have read the links from my previous post.

Roy's catch-weight fights were nothing but keep busy fights.

It was a good win. But Winky had almost 60 fights in his career, and he only ever fought one guy at 170 pounds.

People have got this impression that Bernard was a small guy. But he wasn't. He had size advantages over the majority of his opponents.

Yeah, that's fine, but what was his fight night weight when he fought Bernard?

It was simply an awesome performance by Bernard. I loved it.

I've covered Bernard's win over Tito

I think Bernard's win over Tito was truly great. But again, I'm a stickler for an*lysing things. Yes, Bernard was 36/37, and yes, Tito had looked great at the weight against Joppy. But Tito was at his peak at the lower weights, Bernard was slightly bigger than him, and again, he didn't have to endure what Roy did against Tarver. So although Tito was a huge name, Roy's win over Tarver was better in my opinion. He was fighting a bigger guy who was a southpaw, and he'd got more mileage on his body. That's honestly how I see it. If Roy had beaten Tarver in 2000, just as a mandatory, then I wouldn't have rated the win anywhere near as high as what I rate his 2003 win over him. Again, it's all of the circumstances that were involved that enhances it. But it's things like that what most people don't pick up on.

The Pascal win was very impressive. At the end of the day, Bernard was 45/46. Yes, Pascal did beat Dawson, who'd beaten Tarver. But I always wanted a Dawson-Pascal rematch. Because that was an unsatisfying ending.


:good

 

:good

 

Yet he gets hardly any credit for dominating a 230 pound Ruiz in the following decade.

 

I respect your opinion.

But we need to look at their resumes in their entirety.

 

teemy,

Again, Bernard's longevity is a huge accomplishment. But it's not enough on it's own to rank him above Roy.

Man, you are overlooking so many factors here, it's unbelievable.

You need to look much deeper.

The Tito win was absolutely fantastic.

I can't say that the Oscar one was, as he'd looked dreadful against Sturm and should have lost.

He fought Winky at 170 pounds, which was the only time Winky ever fought at 170 in his whole career.

The Pavlik win was awesome, but he obviously didn't beat the version of Pavlik who'd fought Taylor.

The Pascal win was also very impressive considering that he was 45/46 at the time.

His win over Roy meant absolutely nothing. See below:

http://www.doghouseboxing.com/Benz/Benz_1112a08.htm


Again, please address some of my other points in my previous posts:


Bernard shrunk himself down to fight in a weak division for 12 years, when there was much better competition at SMW and LHW.

He showed no real ambition until after he'd lost to Taylor twice.

He refused to fight Roy when it really mattered.

He was physically bigger than almost all of his opponents at MW, and he was bigger than some of his opponents even at the higher weights.

His biggest wins came against guys who'd had most of their success at lower weights.


:good