Dick Tiger vs Bernard Hopkins

Hopkins is huge compared to Tiger, he's a LHW in Tiger's era. Tiger did well against LHWs but probably none quite as good as Bhop was at his middleweight best. Hopkins is too clever and would take a wide decision for me; the only thing I'd say is that if it's over 15, you just don't know how Hopkins would react to that, although of every single fighter who hasn't boxed over 15, Hopkins is the one i'd be most confident would go well.

9-6ish on my card probably.

 

I always thought the same thing. He was a master at pacing and finding his own rhythm. If 15 rounders existed in his day, I reckon he'd have a few more wins and a few more stoppage victories.

 

Fair enough. I'd personally favor Hopkins myself, but my track record on predictions ain't exactly stellar.

Regarding Hopkins mastery of pacing, in my humble opinion, he was damn versatile and could dictate the terms of a fight in a variety of different ways, depending on the style of his opponent. I also think you may be selling Hopkins short on his ability to take the initiative. That lead right of his was a tricky customer if he found his range and timing, and it wasn't easy to counter whenever he found his groove.

 

He generally threw less as he aged, even his later years at 160. But that wasn't always the case. There were certain fights where he was more offensive minded than usual, even at an advanced age against guys like Pavlik, Pascal, and even Cloud and Shumenov as I recall. But the thing of it is - circling back to what McGrain was saying, Hopkins rarely got outhustled down the final stretch of a fight. I'm not saying there wasn't an exception like a Joe Calzaghe, and I'm not saying that he never otherwise lost a championship round later in his career (pre-49). But he didn't lose many championship rounds over a stretch lasting a decade, and he was often outworking guys 15-20 years younger than him late in a contest.

I think Hopkins would have handled 15 rounds just fine. And I view his methodical pacing as a strong attribute. Even in losing efforts, Hopkins usually got his conqueror to fight to the beat of his rhythm.

 

Personally, I think his workrate tended to be fine throughout his career even when he was clearly past his best (exluding his last two losses when he was very near [and over] 50).