Extracts from a British magazine article on B-Hop written BEFORE Saturday's fight...

socrates · Oct 21, 2008

this is a great thread

copy n paste it is the new black.

Bill Butcher · Oct 21, 2008

PACFAN84 said:

These are extracts from an article by Gareth Seward, written in this week's Boxing News:

"...It is a fact on record that Hopkins is the most dominant champion in history in one of the traditional and historically great divisions. Going undefeated for 12 years with a 10-year reign as world champion saw him not only defend the title successfully a record-breaking 20 times, but to become undisputed champ and the first man to hold the titles of all four major sanctioning bodies simultaneously (IBF,WBC,WBA&WBO).

Although the middleweight division hasn't been overwhelmingly strong in recent years or particularly during Bernard's reign, he did no less than what he could have done - he was thoroughly dominant and ducked nobody...

The common attempt to diminish these victories by Hopkins's detractors is the argument that both Trinidad and De La Hoya were naturally smaller men moving up in weight. It is a biased, twisted viewpoint that relies heavily on hindsight and straw-clutching. De La Hoya may not have been at his best and most comfortable weight at 160lbs, but the slanted view here is that he was totally out of his depth in the division. I don't believe that to be true. Sure, he had struggled in winning a close, controversial decision against Felix Sturm several months before his fight with Hopkins in September 2004, but you can see the difference in Oscar's motivation and his conditioning in the two fights he had at 160lbs. He looked nowhere near as fit for Sturm as he was for Hopkins, and I would dare argue that on that September night Oscar would have had a very good chance of beating any other middleweight on the planet. Unfortunately, though, he fought the best in the world. Hopkins ended Oscar's challenge in the ninth round of a reasonably competitive contest, yet still very little credit was given. This not only denies Bernard the credit he deserves but also does a disservice to Oscar.

The myth that Trinidad was just a blown-up welterweight also does a grave injustice to Hopkins' accomplishment. I seem to recall Trinidad was actually the big betting favourite going in! It was no secret "Tito", who was rated highly on everyone's pound-for-pound lists, had struggled for a while to make welter, and had not only destroyed David Reid's career at light-middle in taking his WBA title, but was also widely expected to embark on a dominant reign by cutting through the middleweights. This had begun with his fifth-round annihilation of Joppy for the WBA title, with Hopkins all set to be the second victim. However, as we now know, Hopkins failed to read the script. Bernard destroyed Tito with one of the most masterful, one-sided displays seen between two champions...

So after unifying the titles by destroying a rival champion he was the underdog against, suddenly it was a hollow victory as Trinidad was coming up in weight? Nonsense. I don't recall too many people prior to their 2001 showdown saying Trinidad was too small. Again, another example of bias and distorted views against Hopkins...

It is also worth noting that two of the other greatest middleweights in history, Carlos Monzon and Marvin Hagler, had some of their most famous victories against men who had come up from lower weight classes. Some of Hagler's highlighted wins include Tommy Hearns (former welter), John Mugabi (light-middle), Roberto Duran (former lightweight), as well as the controversial fight with Sugar Ray Leonard in which Leonard was a former welterweight moving up... Some of Monzon's most celebrated victories came against Emile Griffith (welterweight), Nino Benvenuti (light-middle) and Jose Napoles (welter). Nobody seems to haul either of these two legends over the coals for their victories over assorted light-middles, welters and lightweights. Yet when Hopkins beats two pound-for-pound greats of his era, his achievement is diminished?

Let's not forget Glen Johnson either. I'm not claiming Johnson is a great, but in recent years he has emerged as one of the top dogs in the light-heavyweight division... Look at all the losses on his record and you'll find most of them were, to put it generously, close decisions. Who is the only man to have stopped him? That's right, our man B-Hop. When everyone rattles on that Hopkins beat only smaller guys coming up, nobody ever mentions his knockout victory over one of today's toughest light-heavies...

The Calzaghe fight in April saw another split in opinions over who won. Do you go for volume and workrate and favour Calzaghe, or do you go for the precision and quality punching of Hopkins? Forget the stats that say Joe landed 200-plus punches. Nobody takes over 200 punches in a fight and comes out totally unmarked the way Hopkins did. For me, Bernard did the better work in landing the better punches, and a lot of Joe's flurries were non-scoring punches that were rewarded by the judges. An analogy I often use when explaining this principle is this: in a football match, if Team A take 20 shots on goal and score only one, and Team B take ony five shots on goal and score three, then Team B still win 3-1. It doesn't matter how many shots were taken, the only ones that count are the ones that score...

You can look at paper statistics all you like, but just look at Hopkins and his opponent after the final bell. Who always looks worse? Taylor looked beaten up and swollen. Calzaghe was cut and bruised. Hopkins looked fresh as a daisy. When have you ever seen Hopkins cut or even seriously hurt?

So there you have it. Hopkins is not a myth. He is a very real legend."

WTF IS BEING SAID ABOUT HIM AFTER PAVLIK?!?!

:good
Click to expand...

I agree with almost everything here, Hopkins is an ATG & deserves every bit of success, some of his performances vs good fighters have been nothing short astonishing, a true master of boxing.

ishy · Oct 21, 2008

Read this in Boxing News this week, excellent article.

CarlesX7 · Oct 21, 2008

socrates said:

carles my man you can diminish calzaghe all day long with me i have nothing but respect for ya,i dont take all this nuthugging as serious as some calzaghe isnt perfect no one is!

pacman :yes i have no respect for someone whos lack of objectivity and rationale,coupled with ones own transparent bias towards certain pugilistic frivolities renders him dogmatic and slightly delusional to the extent of taking these issues as a personal attack rather than embracing the subjective and taking these teta te's with a pinch of salt,as i have said i am indifferent to you,your threads and viewpioints i find wikipedia/boxrec a suitable substitute!and if one must reply to this post please refrain fom unoriginality and the usual diatribe which is rife amidst these boards,id appreciate a little maturity and a response befitting ones station!

i hope the feeling is mutual,then we need not bother one another again.

good day.

lol.
Click to expand...

STFU CALZAGHE NUTHUGGER!

ALL HAIL LENNOX LEWIS! :happy

Seriously though mate, I don't find that posting info about some fighters' resume is a bad thing. Boxrec and other websites/sources help inform people about many things, be sure that not all people here know of the info Pacman is posting. I see nothing wrong with it. Sure, Pacfan is no Joe fan and neither am I, but I'm positive he respects the man as much as I do. :thumbsup

socrates · Oct 21, 2008

CarlesX7 said:

STFU CALZAGHE NUTHUGGER!

ALL HAIL LENNOX LEWIS! :happy

Seriously though mate, I don't find that posting info about some fighters' resume is a bad thing. Boxrec and other websites/sources help inform people about many things, be sure that not all people here know of the info Pacman is posting. I see nothing wrong with it. Sure, Pacfan is no Joe fan and neither am I, but I'm positive he respects the man as much as I do. :thumbsup
Click to expand...

STFU NOOB!

ALL HAIL ENZO MAC

i like him really.

lol.

DINAMITA · Oct 21, 2008

socrates said:

carles my man you can diminish calzaghe all day long with me i have nothing but respect for ya,i dont take all this nuthugging as serious as some calzaghe isnt perfect no one is!

pacman :yes i have no respect for someone whos lack of objectivity and rationale,coupled with ones own transparent bias towards certain pugilistic frivolities renders him dogmatic and slightly delusional to the extent of taking these issues as a personal attack rather than embracing the subjective and taking these teta te's with a pinch of salt,as i have said i am indifferent to you,your threads and viewpioints i find wikipedia/boxrec a suitable substitute!and if one must reply to this post please refrain fom unoriginality and the usual diatribe which is rife amidst these boards,id appreciate a little maturity and a response befitting ones station!

i hope the feeling is mutual,then we need not bother one another again.

good day.

lol.
Click to expand...

You continually dismiss me as biased, angry, blah blah blah, and yet you insist on trolling around after me writing this on every thread.

That's your opinion, hold it, but many disagree, and I know myself I never register hatred or dislike of Calzaghe, I actually rate him highly, just not nearly as highly as most of the deluded triumphalists on here.

And FYI, you obliterate your own attempts to be viewed as intelligent and articulate by ending your posts with "lol".

Unless you are a 10-year-old girl texting her posts onto her mobile, this is worthy of ridicule.

chriswrench · Oct 21, 2008

san rafael said:

Amen to that.
Click to expand...

Boxing is about winning individual rounds though. if a football team is winning 2-1 at half time but gets beat 5-2 at full time it doesn't mean its a draw much in the same way that hopkins won the first round and barely threw a punch let alone landed any after that!!!

maracho · Oct 21, 2008

PACFAN84 said:

Although the middleweight division hasn't been overwhelmingly strong in recent years or particularly during Bernard's reign, he did no less than what he could have done - he was thoroughly dominant and ducked nobody...

The common attempt to diminish these victories by Hopkins's detractors is the argument that both Trinidad and De La Hoya were naturally smaller men moving up in weight. It is a biased, twisted viewpoint that relies heavily on hindsight and straw-clutching. De La Hoya may not have been at his best and most comfortable weight at 160lbs, but the slanted view here is that he was totally out of his depth in the division. I don't believe that to be true. Sure, he had struggled in winning a close, controversial decision against Felix Sturm several months before his fight with Hopkins in September 2004, but you can see the difference in Oscar's motivation and his conditioning in the two fights he had at 160lbs. He looked nowhere near as fit for Sturm as he was for Hopkins, and I would dare argue that on that September night Oscar would have had a very good chance of beating any other middleweight on the planet.

WTF IS BEING SAID ABOUT HIM AFTER PAVLIK?!?!

Click to expand...

Winky, Jermain, Bernard, and now Oscar all get a hard time for fighting smaller guys and Robinson, Patterson, Duran, Mosely, and Tito all were easily excused for their losses against slightly bigger guys. Pavlik on the other hand went up even more in weight than most of them did but is now considered no more than a hyped up has been on ESB. Futhermore, according to Emanual Stewart: "Bernard was always a natural Light Heavy he'd just dehydrate down but fight at 175 lbs."

Oscar Could beat any Middleweight? Heck he couldnt even beat the best Jr. Middleweights at that time and why Oscar is still ranked today is what turns fans off of boxing.

Bernard never ducked anyone? From what I read Toney had given Bernard everything he asked for but Bernard still backed out at the last minute. Bernard recently called out Haye but I dont think he could beat the living legend James Toney right now.

Is Bernard an ATG legend? Sure he is and he should be commended for making the best of a very tough life and fighting at 43 years of age.

crespo21 · Oct 21, 2008

PACFAN84 said:

These are extracts from an article by Gareth Seward, written in this week's Boxing News:

"...It is a fact on record that Hopkins is the most dominant champion in history in one of the traditional and historically great divisions. Going undefeated for 12 years with a 10-year reign as world champion saw him not only defend the title successfully a record-breaking 20 times, but to become undisputed champ and the first man to hold the titles of all four major sanctioning bodies simultaneously (IBF,WBC,WBA&WBO).

Although the middleweight division hasn't been overwhelmingly strong in recent years or particularly during Bernard's reign, he did no less than what he could have done - he was thoroughly dominant and ducked nobody...

The common attempt to diminish these victories by Hopkins's detractors is the argument that both Trinidad and De La Hoya were naturally smaller men moving up in weight. It is a biased, twisted viewpoint that relies heavily on hindsight and straw-clutching. De La Hoya may not have been at his best and most comfortable weight at 160lbs, but the slanted view here is that he was totally out of his depth in the division. I don't believe that to be true. Sure, he had struggled in winning a close, controversial decision against Felix Sturm several months before his fight with Hopkins in September 2004, but you can see the difference in Oscar's motivation and his conditioning in the two fights he had at 160lbs. He looked nowhere near as fit for Sturm as he was for Hopkins, and I would dare argue that on that September night Oscar would have had a very good chance of beating any other middleweight on the planet. Unfortunately, though, he fought the best in the world. Hopkins ended Oscar's challenge in the ninth round of a reasonably competitive contest, yet still very little credit was given. This not only denies Bernard the credit he deserves but also does a disservice to Oscar.

The myth that Trinidad was just a blown-up welterweight also does a grave injustice to Hopkins' accomplishment. I seem to recall Trinidad was actually the big betting favourite going in! It was no secret "Tito", who was rated highly on everyone's pound-for-pound lists, had struggled for a while to make welter, and had not only destroyed David Reid's career at light-middle in taking his WBA title, but was also widely expected to embark on a dominant reign by cutting through the middleweights. This had begun with his fifth-round annihilation of Joppy for the WBA title, with Hopkins all set to be the second victim. However, as we now know, Hopkins failed to read the script. Bernard destroyed Tito with one of the most masterful, one-sided displays seen between two champions...

So after unifying the titles by destroying a rival champion he was the underdog against, suddenly it was a hollow victory as Trinidad was coming up in weight? Nonsense. I don't recall too many people prior to their 2001 showdown saying Trinidad was too small. Again, another example of bias and distorted views against Hopkins...

It is also worth noting that two of the other greatest middleweights in history, Carlos Monzon and Marvin Hagler, had some of their most famous victories against men who had come up from lower weight classes. Some of Hagler's highlighted wins include Tommy Hearns (former welter), John Mugabi (light-middle), Roberto Duran (former lightweight), as well as the controversial fight with Sugar Ray Leonard in which Leonard was a former welterweight moving up... Some of Monzon's most celebrated victories came against Emile Griffith (welterweight), Nino Benvenuti (light-middle) and Jose Napoles (welter). Nobody seems to haul either of these two legends over the coals for their victories over assorted light-middles, welters and lightweights. Yet when Hopkins beats two pound-for-pound greats of his era, his achievement is diminished?

Let's not forget Glen Johnson either. I'm not claiming Johnson is a great, but in recent years he has emerged as one of the top dogs in the light-heavyweight division... Look at all the losses on his record and you'll find most of them were, to put it generously, close decisions. Who is the only man to have stopped him? That's right, our man B-Hop. When everyone rattles on that Hopkins beat only smaller guys coming up, nobody ever mentions his knockout victory over one of today's toughest light-heavies...

The Calzaghe fight in April saw another split in opinions over who won. Do you go for volume and workrate and favour Calzaghe, or do you go for the precision and quality punching of Hopkins? Forget the stats that say Joe landed 200-plus punches. Nobody takes over 200 punches in a fight and comes out totally unmarked the way Hopkins did. For me, Bernard did the better work in landing the better punches, and a lot of Joe's flurries were non-scoring punches that were rewarded by the judges. An analogy I often use when explaining this principle is this: in a football match, if Team A take 20 shots on goal and score only one, and Team B take ony five shots on goal and score three, then Team B still win 3-1. It doesn't matter how many shots were taken, the only ones that count are the ones that score...

You can look at paper statistics all you like, but just look at Hopkins and his opponent after the final bell. Who always looks worse? Taylor looked beaten up and swollen. Calzaghe was cut and bruised. Hopkins looked fresh as a daisy. When have you ever seen Hopkins cut or even seriously hurt?

So there you have it. Hopkins is not a myth. He is a very real legend."

WTF IS BEING SAID ABOUT HIM AFTER PAVLIK?!?!

:good
Click to expand...

COULD YOU IMAGINE IF AN AMERICAN JOURNO WROTE THIS SORT OF WRIGHT UP ON A BRITISH FIGHTER.
WELL AT LEAST WERE UN BIASED. MAKES ME PROUD. :good

SouthpawSlayer · Oct 21, 2008

he is a legend

DINAMITA · Oct 22, 2008

crespo212ert@ho said:

COULD YOU IMAGINE IF AN AMERICAN JOURNO WROTE THIS SORT OF WRIGHT UP ON A BRITISH FIGHTER.
WELL AT LEAST WERE UN BIASED. MAKES ME PROUD. :good
Click to expand...

I'm sure I read another one like this, about Winky Write.

socrates · Oct 22, 2008

Chaos, panic and disorder--my work here is done.

pac:How many times do I have to flush before you go away?

seriously last reply from me on this thread,time to move on.

im off to talk kessler,pac is off to copy n paste a 50 year old resume or something.the future is ours............

DINAMITA · Oct 22, 2008

socrates said:

Chaos, panic and disorder--my work here is done.

pac:How many times do I have to flush before you go away?

seriously last reply from me on this thread,time to move on.

im off to talk kessler,pac is off to copy n paste a 50 year old resume or something.the future is ours............
Click to expand...

Your work here is indeed done, a few dull feeble posts then an exit, sounds about right. :hi:

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Extracts from a British magazine article on B-Hop written BEFORE Saturday's fight...

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Extracts from a British magazine article on B-Hop written BEFORE Saturday's fight...

socrates THE ORIGINAL... Full Member

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CarlesX7 Shit got real! Full Member

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