Charley Burley v Bernard Hopkins

Should be interesting. Not seen enough - only a small clip - of Charley so I won´t comment but I really like to see a good discussion.

Perhaps start with the Bruley-Jones comparison that sometimes comes up.

 

"I see a lot of Charley in this kid, [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Jones_Jr"]Roy Jones Jr[/ame]. Both had unorthodox styles, could hit you from any angle, both hard to hit. Charley jabbed more than Jones, if Jones would concentrate on boxing as Charley did, he would become an all-time great."-AJ Nelson, sparring partner of Burley's (taken from wikipedia for what it's worth)

 

Very hard to say, the more success hopkins has past prime at lhw, the more his h2h standing at MW improves.

Still, the closest style match to burley is obviously jones. and despite being a couple of years before hopkins peak, jones made it look fairly easy. Maybe Hopkins woulod have done better circa 2001, but we'll never know so we have to go with what we saw.

Until hopkins can prove much better than a man with that kinda style you'd have to favour burley imo.

 

That's probably the best way too approach this question, if there is any good way of doing at all that is.

With that said, judging from the little footage avalaible of Burley, Jones is much, much faster and also of course bigger. Jones was a freak of nature, making even speedsters like Leonard and Whitaker appear almost average in terms of speed. He was also probably at least 170 when facing Hopkin's, whereas Burley often came in a few good pounds under 160.

 

true, but even guys like taylor and joe (despite me thinking he beat them both [taylor in the 1st]) gave him trouble with handspee.

his best weapon would be timing and would he be able to out time someone like burley? very hard to say.

maybe he'd spoil a victory (zivic beat burley didn't he?) and take burley out of his gameplan down the stretch, but that's not a pretty fight to envision.

 

That was in his 40's, though. What 40-year old doesn't have trouble with handspeed?

 

Who would you say was the faster fighter he faced between jones at taylor?

 

Good question. He isn't really proven against speedsters. But Mercado was fast and slick, and Echols was explosive and reasonably fast.

Mercado is the probably the one, next to Jones, that reminds the most of Burley stylewise. But he's nowhere near in terms of greatness, of course.

 

yes that was my thought, despite the scoring I think he comfortably beat mercado in the first.

however I think the gap is far too wide to gauge any comparison from it whihc is why I had to delve into his 40's.

there just isn't enough evidence out there for me to pick hopkins over burley imho

 

Burley didnt use steroids and he wouldnt be facing a pre prime Hopkins in his first big bout so those two advantages can be thrown out.

 

1)jones wasn't on steroids anywhere near that bout

2)prime physical, pre-prime skills/experience.

i don't see the hopkins of 97-2003 doing any better

 

No, I think it's hard to find evidence to reach any conclusive opinion (which there seldom is, of course). Intruiging fight for sure, though.

 

I think his technical skills were more or less fully developed. It's more about experience and decision making I'd say. But that goes for Jones too.

My favourite Hopkins' perfomances are Mercado II and Echols II. Skillful savagery at it's best.