Hearns vs. Hopkins at 160,168,and 175

Haha you question Hopkins's comp. Hearns lost his 2 biggest fights and he only beat fighters that he had a huge height and reach advantage over like old duran, cuevas and benitez. If anyone was overrated, its thomas hearns.

 

there has been many threads like this before idiot and hopkins usually wins the polls. His defense is much better, he has the chin and better inside game. How can he not win this fight.

 

While I favor Hopkins, just based on him being the natural MW with good size, defense, and chin, I hardly think Hearns is overrated. It's amazing that you can say he lost his two biggest fights and ignore that Leonard never had a knockout over an ATG (unless you somehow count Lalonde) after that fight and that Hagler only won one more fight after that. Say what you will, but to me, Hearns wrecked both of them and still went on to have major wins, Leonard II, Duran, Virgil Hill. And H2H, he's a stylistic nightmare for anyone in the 147-154 divisions with his size, skill, and one-punch knockout power.

 

hearns had a clear height and reach advantage over those guys. If he fought someone like mike mccallum, then we would have seen how good he is against guys with the same height and reach.

 

Height and reach advantages were also Hearns' downfall though. His legs were too skinny to box 15 rounders, his neck was too thin to absorb many hard punches, and his thinner body left him susceptible to body shots. Then of course it takes more out of Hearns to make weight (having to weigh 147 on fight night instead of the night before). Particularly in the lower weight divisions, size advantages aren't as helpful as they can be in the Heavyweight division. So you can't just say that height and reach were purely advantages. Hearns had used them well enough to cover his weaknesses, but the weaknesses were always there at the lower weights in particular.

People forget because Hearns used size so well that Leonard was a pretty big fighter at Welter too, standing at 5'10. In today's division, where you weigh in one day before instead, you still see very few Welters standing at 5'10 or above. The biggest world class Welter left is Mosley, unless Williams returns to the division. Also, Hill wasn't anymore than an inch shorter in both height and reach when a 35 year old Hearns took his undefeated streak. As for Duran, he spent the last phase of his career fighting bigger guys (as a challenge or because he ate himself out of the divisions, or whatever), and it still took 11 more years for someone to replicate what Hearns did to him.

 

Hearns, Hearns and Hearns

 

Hearns gives some serious stylistic problems for the later versions of Hopkins especially. Hopkins likes to box and counter punch and speed and a great jab are the foil to beat that style, Hopkins always had a few problems with boxers like this. Hopkins may come from behind knowing he needs a KO, the younger BHops is the better to pull this off, the destroyer version who fought from 93-98 would be a different fight to the counter punching boxer he became.

 

I go with Hearns in all weight categories here. Hopkins' defensive skills would ensure that he lasts the distance,however.

 

As long as we're not talking about the badly faded, legless and tentative Hopkins of '03 onwards, I think he'd probably out-smart and out-time Hearns, roughing him up inside for a late stoppage. The lead right would land all night and Hopkins would go inside where Hearns is catastrophically weak, softening him up and finishing it around the later rounds.

 

Yeah, he improved once he stepped up in weight, although even in the Calzaghe fight I suspect he'd lost something compared to when he fought Wright.

 

What a wanker

FFS, who didn't Hearns have a huge height and reach advantage over all the way to 160 you imbecile.

Did Hearns really lose his two biggest fights? Cuevas without hindsight and the Hearns massacre was considered by a great many to be the greatest welter of the day.

Benitez was thought to have found his niche at 154 and many believed he would beat SRL there, some even believing he would beat Hagler. Incidentally Hearns was a 7-5 underdog.

 

hey im just quoting sugar ray leonard on that one, he was the one that came up with the phrase.