@Kittikasem it's not a case of him gaining an advantage. It's a case of it being much more harmful to him to fight regularly making the 160lb limit on the day. Technically he might well have had the same advantages over the same fighters if they'd had the same rules anyway, as 'his' era of light heavyweights might be more frequent heavyweight performers. But if you put him in the 40s and have him fight much more I think he wouldn't be fighting at the age he is now, he'd have more losses (and a greater resume of wins, might well be ranked similarly high to how he is now) and would've been campaigning over the middleweight limit most of the time, even if he could make the odd title fight the weight below, as Lloyd Marshall could've if he'd been given the chances. And of course there have been fighters in the last decade as big as him, teud probably be light heavys as well. Anything over 160 back then is light heavy, there were plenty of guys campaigning as 166-170ish lbers back in the day. He's a good inch or so taller than Monzon, who's usually seen as a 'tall' middle (sometimes even taller than he actually was :fire) so yeah, bar some lanky freaks I'd say B-Hop is one of the biggest of the best middleweights of all time.
I think you're underestimating the huge difference in being given what is essentially 32 hours rehydration period. You wouldn't necessarily have to uncomfortable doing that to find doing it on the day a whole different kettle of fish. Obviously I'm not saying Hopkins is a Chavez Jr type! In the 40s he'd have started at middle and been a career heavy from about a year ago ;-)
I also don't think this theory is a way of bashing Hopkins. Not in any way, shape or form. Everyone's doing it, it's fair. 165 is not much at all, but 161 is light heavyweight in the 40s. No one defended their title every fight, so Hopkins would've had plenty of light heavyweight fights, that would've outweighed his title defences you'd imagine. Again, I'm not saying he'd be a corpse at 160 on the day or would be weighing in at 175lbs all the time.
I believe in Hopkins' discipline and... smarts! I see him running additional 20 miles everyday in order to make the middleweight limit so that he could dominate smaller guys like Graziano rather than fighting guys like Ezzard. Although he was never a natural middleweight. He is at least as big as most super middleweights.
he saw niche and stayed with it, he's a L-HW and especially where it counted, in the 1940s, and he gets ripped. Lloyd Marshall is a great example for the period, he was a MW cun L-HW and he fought even bigger lads too (as ALL the TOP fighters did), in L-HWs cum HW... and he/they fought dozens & hundreds of fights these guys. Marshall would have destroyed Hopkins and he (Marshall), was by no means alone in the talent & busy era pool that he & his peers HAD to deal with! if a fighter didn't he was short lived and had no boxing career to speak of!!!
Carl Froch never strays fare from the 168lb limit. He'd be a super strong 171,172lb light heavy. And I'd pick Hopkins weighing 165lbs to school him all the same. I don't think Hopkins is any less of a fighter and if anything he came down to fight Pavlik as well, and was smaller than Tarver, and probably weighed less than Pascal, despite being taller. I do think Hopkins would be more likely to fight over the weight unless it was for something special. That really isn't out of the ordinary. He loved his titles, and he trained hard every.single.time even against pretty dire opposition, because he was THE champ' and he'd fight anyone. That wouldn't change for keep busy fights, of which there would be many for a black ex-con in the 1940s, but I don't think Hopkins would be getting to 160 every time into his 30s. Here's one; with same day weigh in's, Pacquiao would never have met anyone for any kind of flyweight championship. With how drawn he was for some of his 130lb fights is there any doubt that maybe Manny would've started as a feather and been a lightweight then welterweight for most of his career? That's a few scary achievements taken from him. But imagine on the other end of the scale: Ricky Hatton might well have been a middleweight for most of his career, or a weedy lightweight who lacked Hatton's strength. If he's the same strong little ******* he's gonna' have to stay much more dedicated to be a consistent welterweight. McVey, what welters would Hatton encounter in the 40s?
I would. I trained a bit with Bernard prior to his fight with Joppy, and he literally lives as well as any champion I've ever seen. Every waking hour serves his boxing career. He weighed what he weighed year round, and really only cut weight seriously the final week before action. Same-day wouldn't have seen him weigh in under the limit so often, but he'd have been fine.
Magna, I rate your opinion on everything you've got first hand knowledge of more than anyone else, trust me. I believe you 100% and you can see from my long-winded and waffling post I pretty much agree. But don't you also think, given the time and place, that 'Nard would almost have certainly fought over the limit many times in the same time of his life when he was never straying over the limit? Because most of these guys did, and I don't think he'd be as dominant a champion in the 40s for many reasons so he's gonna' have plenty of reasons to not always make the limit. That is my point. Not that he's a massive cutter who gained a big advantage over men in his own era doing something they all were somehow not taking advantage of. And Thistle, Marshall was incredible, but the styles of these two men dictate that there would be a highly competitive contest. I'd say the same of Hopkins later against Mims, Webb, Benton, Giardello, if he fights these guys like they fought each other then he's gonna' pick up losses here and there. It isn't going to be like fighting Allen three times.
I dont think he preyed on them, he wanted to stay at middleweight and break title defense records.I dont fault the guy for that, and like some of said, he stayed in the gym year round so making the weight was easy for him. I dont think Hopkins was particularly a strong middleweight, but my main point was that the Trinidad win is vastly overated. I would put more merit in his win over a guy like Kelly Pavlik who had the same fighting style but was stronger than Hopkins. Trinidad was a one dimensional banger and anytime he got in there with someone who could handle his size he could be beaten easily. Trinidad was never really a natural welterweight sizewise but he made the weight. When he moved up his one dimensional style was exploited pretty badly. Hopkins was an overall complete fighter with a good chin. I dont rank him as one of the greatest complete fighters, but he was and thats why you see guys like him able to compete into their older ages, because they can fight fights that exploit their opponents inabilities. How many complete fighters are out there today. All the recent wins are good wins over one dimensional fighters. Some of those guys you mentioned are just average realistically. Eastman, Johnson, (Echols and Allen hurt him badly), but not really special fighters. Its hard to rank the guy really, his best win is over a welterweight. The better fighters he faced on a similar size level he lost.
Yeah mate, I agree if it was the different rules of yesteryear B-Hop might have had to be at 168 then 175 earlier in his career, but I do get very tired of people saying Hopkins was a natural lightheavy in today's world, when the guy was 39 and coming in at 156. Gets a bit thin, seems like on here people either hear something said once and then parrot it forevermore on no evidence, or else just make up whatever suits them. But I agree with you, if it was same day weigh-ins Hop's career trajectory would have been different. He was never bigger than the big mw's of today who do the same (Pavlik, Taylor), but would be bigger, longer and heavier than Hagler, Robinson, etc.
That might be relevant if you felt Bernard was on Joey's level as a LHW. What era ? The post I responded to was referring to ALL eras.