after watching the build to and the full fights of the two above i wondered....a lot time you hear of fighters (hopkins for example) who was for a long time a middleweight recieve flak for taking fights with welterweights (and junir middles) as they are stepping up in class just out of curiosity why was this not the case in the past with say hagler/hearns when they fought for example wasnt hearns stepping up from welterweight? was this a time gap thing or not carrying punching power or something different?
Basically it was becase Hearns was a freak. He was taller than Hagler, had a longer reach and was more powerful, although not physically stronger. Basically, all the problems that a welter usually has when stepping in with a MW for the first time were problems that Hagler the established Middleweight, was looking to overcome.
Yep,great Answer Mcgrain.:good That Argument Works Better If You Use Duran,leonard Or Even Mugabi(LM) Welcome By The Way Beerto:hi:
Hearns was freakishly tall and filled into middleweight naturally. Trinidad could have finished his career at 154. Hearns finished his at 175... Also Hagler hearns is arguably the greatest middleweight fight of all time, so any sort of argument about wieght issues seems a bit fickle. Hopkins gets respect from me for beating Trinindad. Who was a great fighter and Hop was the underdog going in, however Trinindads main asset(power) was diluted at 160 and he wasnt super durable at the lower weights...
How do you figure, Tito was one who carried his power through 160. On the otherhand Hearns was totally the opposite
i don't discredit hopkins for beating tito at all... to me, that is his signature victory tito was a HUGE favorite going into the fight and had crushed joppy at 160 already (and basically started the end of vargas' career at 154) ... i know it's easy to say in retrospect, but at the time, no one really gave hopkins much of a shot... and hopkins went out with a gameplan and systematically dismantled tito... it was a beautiful thing to watch it's only after winky totally owned tito a few years later that people started to say oh well tito wasn't that good to begin with, he just got exposed... hellz no, when he stepped into the ring against hopkins, many many people considered him the best fighter in the world
As for finishing out at cruiser...hes obviously not a 147 man..yet I say his beatdown of Cuevas at 147 was one of his best wins. Yes 160 he was still a beast, made a mistake of going t2t with Hagler..case in point he demolished A promising fighter Shuler the next fight
