Hopkins vs Monzon

I never seen anything in his performance against Eastman that suggests he was 'declining' apart from being more conservative with his punches and conserving energy. Strategy was also part of the reason he was cautious. His legs were on the move as often as anytime during his career that night. His punch output wasn't 70-80 punches a round. And I think his handpseed was firing on all cylinders. When he began to dominate during the late rounds, his counters were blazing actually.

Hopkins had the opportunity to weigh 158lbs for the contracted weight against De La Hoya, yet decided to muster up as much speed as possible and weigh-in 156lbs.

Hopkins' discipline, nutrition, spartan like training regime, and walking around no more than 166lbs between fights ensured that he made middleweight no sweat. :good

 

Because in his prime Hopkins isnt getting outworked by Hagler, see the Johnson fight or the Trinidad fight for that matter

 

Neither of those guys are close to Hagler as a fighter at Middleweight and more specifically as a boxer. Kelly Pavlik wasn't outworking him the other night either because he a.) couldn't find him and b.) got tired of getting cracked every time he threw a punch. None of these fighters are in the same league at Middleweight as Marvelous Marvin Hagler. Trinidad at his best (147/154) was a level below Hagler.

 

I'd agree Hopkins hasn't faced as good a MW as Hagler, but the reverse is true.

You talk about Pavlik/Tito puzzled by Hopkins, well Hagler would look puzzled and himself against Leonard and ofcourse outboxed. Hagler would get picked out from range and compete he would have to come to Hopkins and BHOPS loves a fight to come to him, he can just counter punch them

 

Yeah that´s right but still I think late in his career he had to do more to make it and that took a little bit out of him. Not much but enough to give a man like Taylor the chance to make it close enough to get the decisions.
Imo he looked slower than in the years before. Not much but slower. Just like he did throw less punches and had a little bit less crisp in them he became a little bit slower.

 

Its nice to agree on something for once Loewe. I agree with this down to a T except physically I think he was declining sinc the mid-90s, he was such an intense seek and destory fighter back then.

Post Trinidad the declines became very noticable. The last Allen, Delahoya, Joppy, Eastman were all big declines physically despite him dominating.

 

Complete and utter nonsense.

 

Despite my avatar, I don't think Leonard could've done what he did against a prime Hagler. I do agree with you that Hagler would be forced to bring the fight to Hopkins, and I don't think that would be easy by any means. We just differ on what we think the outcome would be.

 

I'm not so sure Hagler would have to bring the fight to him.

He's got by far the better jab, there's no reason why he can't use his own excellent movement and make Hopkins the one to do the leading.

That jab will go a long way to make up for the height difference between the two.