How Good Was Bernard Hopkins In His 1993 Loss To Roy Jones?

Flawed logic. If it were such a mismatch (4-1 and 5-1 is a major mismatch), they wouldn't be trying to hype that fight at all. But they actually had seen Hopkins train or fight, that's why they were describing it as an excellent match up. Besides, Jones wasn't such a super-star at the time, like he had been immediately after the Olympic games, or later in the decade. As has been said before, he was still fighting little-known opponents at the time, he only had fired his father as his manager not long before that, to speed up his career.

 

Kessler, Lacy, Reid and Mitchell were neither old or bums.:roll:

 

Bums and old men. :hi:

 

Oh dear :roll:

 

Flawed how? I responded to your argument about Hopkins vs Jones being the best fight of the card, which it obviously was with the rest of the card being laughable mismatches (Bowe vs Ferguson had 40 to 1 odds). I also have two newspapers backing my view, and now a third which has Hopkins a 5-1 underdog. They hyped the fight because Hopkins was a tough Philadelphia fighter with a good backstory, while Jones was going to be a future super-star who had been featured and praised on HBO. He had been devastating guys who had given top middles a rough time.

Here's a newspaper that has Jones a 6 to 1 favorite:

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/baltsun...s+Hopkins+for+middleweight+crown&pqatl=google

I guess they're all wrong.

"Roy Jones Jr. is widely considered to be the brightest prospect in boxing, a superstar in the making whose talent and charisma could light up the sport in the manner of his idol, Muhammad Ali."

 

Bums and old men. :hi:

 

Same newspaper (Baltimore Sun), same date (May 23, 1993), same author (Alan Goldstein), is he giving odds at random (4-1, 5-1, now 6-1)?
My point was, arguing Hopkins' status at the time based on odds is flawed. The people who were betting on Jones have hardly seen Hopkins' fights, so their opinion (represented by odds) was meaningless as compared to people who have actually seen Hopkins before.

 

He's the writer who said Hopkins was a 5-to-1 underdog previously.

Newsday, author Wallace Matthews, has Hopkins a 4-1 underdog, as does Philadephia Daily News.

If you can come up with a different figure then by all means, but all you've done is speculate. I agree that the odds don't necessarily reflect how good the fighters were at the time, but it does reflect on how the two fighters were viewed in general.

 

He was at his peak physical prime.

Jones was just better than him, end of story.

 

That's what I pointed out, same writer in two editions of the same newspaper giving two different odds (5-1 and 6-1). Where was he taking them, is a big question.
I don't think it reflects how the fighters were viewed per se. In this case it rather reflects popularity, but hardly the strength of either. Even the 4-1 odds look laughable based on seeing Hopkins and Jones performances prior to this fight (I've seen 5 earlier B-Hop's bouts, and I've seen Jones' skills and generalship requiring more polishing, and considering his right hand wasn't fully healed yet).

 

How could the odds be changing after the fight was already finished? Both reports were written/published post-fight.

 

He had Hopkins a 5-to-1 underdog and Jones a 6-to-1 favorite. One doesn't necessarily go against the other.

Let's take for example the upcoming Sebastian Sylvester title defense. Sylvester is a 10 to 1 favorite (1,1x return) while his opponent is a 6 to 1 underdog (6x return).

 

In his next bout, Gary Sykes is a 5-1 favorite while his opponent is a 4,5 underdog. Seems like these odds are rather common (with Jones being 6-1 favorite and Hopkins 5-1 underdog).