Hopkins resume at 160lbs average?

I agree...Just didnt really have much of an era..With the dilution of what it means to be a world champ and so many more division these days, eras will probably only get weaker.

 

I think it suffers if you weren't there as he was coming up through the MW ranks.

Segundo Mercado was being talked about as a potential fast rising star. If you weren't there reading those boxing magazine articles at the time and being in discussions regarding him before Hopkin's seemingly derailed him... Yeah, of course he looks like a mediocre 14 years later.

I think some of his wins are underrated like I've said before. He completely took apart John David Jackson, who was a high risk no reward fight throughout his entire career. Can't fault a guy who has a win over Reggie Johnson and nearly killed Fernando Castro in the ring, where as neither Terry Norris or Roy Jones had him looking like he needed a trip to the hospital ASAP.

 

Nard had a good run of wins there in 97-98...Taking out JDJ, Johnson, Council and Brown.
Unfortunately none of these fighters were really in their prime..Jackson was more or less semi-retired, coming off a loss and really fighting no one of note since he lost the Castro.
Johnson was very raw and not the fighter he would become, thats why Hops did it so easy.
Brown was a few years past his use by date and probably at least a division up from his best weight..Watch his fight with Bradley a couple of years prior, he looked pretty faded even then.
Council wasnt past it but really not as good as these guys were or would become.

I was fairly young around the time Mercado was coming up..But I have been told he had some raps on him, being signed to fight in the U.S after going alright in the Olympics.

 

From Hagler till now (20+ years), who has compiled a better mw resume?

Hopkins fought the best mw's available to him, and was champion for a long time. He beat the best smaller men in the world (Trinidad, Oscar) just like Hagler and Monzon did, but the best smaller men of the times were simply not as good as the best smaller men of past times (Hearns,SRL,Duran,Griffith,Napoles,Benvenuti). He beat everyone around from his own division including some solid comp (Glen Johnson, Keith Holmes, Echols etc).

No, his mw resume was not as good as Hagler's or Monzon's, or arguably even Toney's if you're talking concentration of good comp into a shorter time period, but he was beating the best people there was to beat at 160. Can't ask for much more IMO.

And I still think the win over Trinidad was a truly truly great win and performance.

 

I think his sometimes average MW competition is all but forgiven if you evaluate how he moved up at such a ungodly advanced age.

 

I dont think its a bad thing necessarily to refer to the era as average..Its just its middle of the pack compared to the Robinson, Hagler, Greb, Fullmer, Monzon, Steele, Tiger eras and all of the other eras good or bad.

 

And in that same breath...

Robinson was inconsistent at MW. Very much so. How many times did he lose the title?

That's what gets me when someone mentions him as the greatest MW of all time and what not, which is done quite a bit by the uninformed. Absolutely dominating a decent division for over a decade isn't much worse then being inconsistent in a very good one.

 

But also would Bernard have had such a pretty record if he had been fighting as often and in such a variety of geographical locations as Robinson was?

Thats why is hard and often unfair to compare eras. Transplant them I think Ray wins all the fights Hopkins did and sometimes more definitively, which was his style and not Bernards..Put Hopkins in Ray's era I dont think he does much better but certainly not much worse.

 

I agree. I do not believe Robinson deserves to be ranked above Monzon at middleweight for this reason.

 

It's not any worse than Hagler's or Monzon's, which also look rather mediocre.

 

The opposition was average, but the amount of title defenses were impressive. Virgil Hill actually had about the same amount of defenses at light heavyweight in his two reigns.