Hopkins at 40 jumped from 160-175 to fight the best

Bernard Hopkins weights
vs Tavoris Cloud 174.5
vs Jean Pascal 174.75
vs Jean Pascal 174.5
vs Roy Jones Jr 175
vs Enrique Ornelas 175
vs Antonio Tarver 174
vs Clinton Mitchell (first pro fight) 177

Hopkins never had a problem hitting 175. He had to live like a monk plus never touch alcohol or sweets to stay down at 160 for so long.

But maybe Golovkin doesn't want Bernard Hopkins' career. Maybe he want's Joe Calzaghe's. I bet all the guys who hate on Golovkin are swingin' round Calzaghe's nuts. Calzaghe moved up one division for like his last two fights against past prime stars but he established himself as the best in his division for forty something fights first.

Personally, I think it's ridiculous that people want Golovkin to move up 2 divisions. I could understand how a person might want him to move up one, but two is unreasonable and makes no sense. I could understand if they wanted him to fight Ward or Degale at 168, but when they start asking him to fight Kovalev at 175, that just tells me that they hate him, want to see him knocked out, and think that Kovalev is the smallest guy who could do it. It's not like these guys were asking Ward to move up 2 divisions and fight Drozd, Keith Thurman to fight Golovkin, or Kovalev to fight Tyson Fury.

As for the guys who think that Golovkin should have fought Ward at 168, I say that they were right. But I wasn't demanding it the way that I do the Canelo fight, because Golovkin wasn't holding on to a belt that belonged to Ward at super middleweight. If Golovkin had a super middleweight belt but wouldn't fight the consensus best super middleweight then he is being a ***** and hurting another fighter's career. Ward would be 100% within his rights to call Golovkin out at that point, if Golovkin won a super middleweight title at 161 pounds off of let's say Keith Thurman and then only defended it against junior middleweights. Canelo can do what he wants, but the belt comes with responsibilities.

Oh, and the guys who compare Mayweather's career and say that he moved up just aren't serious either. Mayweather was a featherweight when he was 18 and grew into a welterweight. Golovkin was a junior welterweight at the same age and grew into a middleweight. Mayweather made his debut when he was 18 and still growing but Golovkin didn't turn pro until he was 24. During that period he beat Korobov, Lee, Bute, Dirrell, and they say he never beat anybody. These guys don't give him proper respect for his amateur achievements.

 

There was no 168 until the year before Hagler retired. Why should a 5'9 guy who was weighing in @ 160 the morning of the fight move up to 175?

 

I think you've only said this 5x today...you're making progress.

...And I don't remember Nasim Richardson saying loudly, that Hopkins could "beat anyone from 154-175."

 

Oh, so three 6-1 guys ran to 160 to avoid GGG, rather than just because

160lbs. is a fuqqin rail for a 30+/- y/o guy who is 6-1!!

Man, I like GGG, but his fans are complete ****weeds.

By the way, you forgot Ishida.

 

What was his weight against De La Hoya, again?

 

Why? his trainer was at one time one of them?!?!

 

to be fair, he got easily beat by the best, dawson and kovalev. but yeh at least he did fight them in his 40s.

 

This is actually quite unusual. Lot's of people don't know how to use the apostrophe, but in most cases they are at least consistent in their misuse.:bart

 

Brilliant. /end thread

 

:deal

 

A weightcutter stopped cutting weight and succeeded at the weight at age 40.
Golovkin still has a couple of years to go to copy that. First let him beat Hopkins' MW record, then jump to SMW and LHW to become an ATG.

 

Interesting that Hopkins first fight was at 177 . In all his fights at light heavyweight he looked like solid and trim . Does that mean he starved himself to make 160 and had a size advantage over the guys who were 2 divisions below his natural weight ?

Few of Hopkins fights were fan friendly , mostly they were messy clutch and grab affairs . I will remember him as a dull fighter who had a good record against smaller guys but as a rule rather disappointing to watch.

 

He ducked the rematch with Roy in 2002, and he had to make huge sacrifices to remain at MW all those years. I don't think he was a natural LHW, but he certainly wasn't a natural MW.