Hopkins vs. big punchers

His chin is pretty good but hard to see how he will react now to it, he is getting on and really he just doesnt get hit that much anymore. It could be a matter of how much he wants to take.
But regardless I still say this is a nightmare fight for Kelly, he will win on his youth and workrate but I dont think he stops Nard.

I wouldnt say Tarver isnt a puncher, he can certainly punch.

 

Hopkins rarely clearly hit and when he always rolls with the punch. Add that to his good chin and great footwork and Pavlik´s unprovenness as a puncher at lhw and he will have much trouble knocking Hopkins out. I hope B-Hop and Jones turn back time one last time and face of in a retirement fight. Would be great saying good bye to two legends at the same time. Doubt any of this will happen though.

 

Trinidad, Eastman, Taylor and Tarver. All those are good enough punchers that Hopkins fought.

 

Hopkins already admitted that he won't retire unless he's knocked out, if he goes the distance and loses against Pavlik I won't be surprised to see him return once again. The addiction is clearly there and Hopkins is literally begging anyone to knock him out so he can be convinced he's finished, otherwise he will remain active even if he loses by decision unless it's a VERY clear decision loss that he's convinced by.

 

I'll give you Trinidad and Tarver. Eastman though? he is nothing special. I don't understand why hopkins fans always mention him as some kind of a great hopkins opponent.

Taylor is (or was) a very over rated puncher. He built up a KO records knocking out much smaller guys. I pulled up his record once and notcied that a large percentage of his opponents were fighting at 160 for the first time and many of them moved back down afterwards. Also if you look past the KO's you'll see that most of those KO's were just stoppages from the guy getting punched over and over.

 

Trinidad tarver and taylor could punch

 

Tito and Taylor are both big punchers. Did you see what Tito did to Joppy?

and Tarver knocked out RJJ with one punch, after RJJ had been taking flush shots from John Ruiz

 

Never said Eastman is great, he lacks speed and skills but has decent power and chin. He nearly finished off Miranda in that fight and has a good enough KO ratio, not against the best but he had what it takes. As far as I remember he was also Hopkins' mandatory and considered a legitimate threat when Hopkins ran into him. He's not great but he has good enough power to be considered a puncher based on his style of fighting.

Taylor has power, he rocked Hopkins in the 2nd round of the first fight and got his attention right there and put Pavlik in SERIOUS trouble. It's the fact that he fought top competition that he never got quick KOs, when you fight the best it's always difficult to keep the KOs coming especially when those guys are fighters like Hopkins and Wright. Taylor is still a new guy despite his early major accomplishments, we will know more about his power in future fights even at Super Middle.

 

Before he fought both guys they were both labeled as good enough punchers that have a chance to drop or seriously hurt Hopkins especially the Tarver fight and for obvious reasons.

 

yes exactly what im hoping they both manage to pull out the wins and fight each other as there rematch and goodbye fight

and then pavlik faces joe c that would be great

 

Taylor barely landed enough against Cory Spinks for us to decide, Spinks was constantly moving and sometimes literally running that night. Ouma just proved he has a quality chin when he comes in perfect condition for a fight and proved everyone wrong for handling those shots well enough, credit should be given to Ouma here rather than claiming Taylor can't punch hard. Pavlik has a solid chin and he was nearly taken out as early as the 2nd round.

 

Hopkins was a huge favorite against Eastman. No one that I know of anywhere thought that Eastman was a legitamite threat. But that's an argument for a whole different thread

Well the thread title specifically asked for big punchers and the term really hard hitter was used in the opening post. To me a big puncher is a guy that can score the KO's or seriously hurt the top guys. Guys that other people have trouble hurting a guy with way better than average power. Even in your posts you say that Taylor and Eastman have "decent power". A guy with just decent power is not a really hard hitter IMO. I'm not knocking them as fighters. Plenty of guys are good without having even decent power but they don't fit the definition of what the thread is looking for.