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

True. Although in a prime for prime matchup my money would have been on Jones all the way. Jones was simply the superior fighter

 

The thing is though, we know all of the stuff about how they're attributes that make them great fighters are polar-opposites, but it's a moot point. He has Bernard Hopkins on his resume at 160 in 1993, i think that's a fine win.

 

It´s a good win over a decent to good contender. It´s not a great win over an atg. And at the time Roy was expected to win bigger.

 

Yeah i've said that from the get go, although for me personally i'm adding the word 'very' into it, a very good win for me. Let's just be consistent with our application of this kind of theory for other fighters in history if we're doing it for this win.

I don't really see how that's all that relevant in hindsight, we didn't know about Hopkins back then what we do now.

 

I try, doesn´t work all the time. Even I make mistakes. Rarely but it happens.

It´s very relevant. People back then not knowing how their careers would pan out makes them more objective than us now. They took the fighters they saw before they fought and judged them on how good they were. It´s not important how good they became afterwards. It´s important how good they were at the time of the fight.

 

But it is relevant, because it helped define the fighters.

To rate someone you must know for instance beating Ray Robinson in 1961, is not the same as beating his sweetness in 1951.

Going back at the time, Hopkins was considered to have a punchers chance, but the feeling was Jones would probably look sensational winning.

Jones did not look sensational, and Hopkins did not get too much kudos, as the feeling was he did not go for it.

At the time, the fight kind of flattened Jones' rise, (for a good 18 months or so) and quite badly damaged Hopkins.

But the fact that both came back (eventually) really well, is a credit to them, and of course would need to rewarded to them, when assesing their career.

 

:good

Yeah, good point there, i think there's a balance that must be found. I always say that the Corrales win for Mayweather is better than is sometimes made out because Corrales was highly ranked and thought of at the time pound for pound, but i don't want to blow it up into silly proportions. Suppose the same kind of thing works here, Hopkins was not considered great at the time, i do factor in the fact that he is/was great though, so it's just hard to find the balance sometimes.

:good

 

I actually think this fight was a huge learning experience for Hopkins and played a role in becoming what he did.

 

Probably

 

I cant agree with the bolded bud.

I know Hopkins fought more tenetively against Jones, but look at the way he fought against Mercado, hardly the refined Boxing technique that he displayed later in his career. Hopkins said himself, a fights after the Mercado fight, that he was changing as a fighter, and sure enough you could gradually seem him becoming a more technical fighter.

 

Hopkins would've never fared any better against Roy. He was scared of him.

 

That's lame.

 

But true.

RJJ was getting grief, and many were thinking we have got another Curry on our hands rather than Leonard, and it took the Toney fight to start to prove otherwise.

 

What a crock of ****. Jones was less dimensional during this fight than he became. You need time to adjust to the pro game, and Jones added a lot to his punch variety and defense, just as much as Hopkins became some disciplined boxing guru. Sure Jones had an edge in atheleticism, but that would have always been the case as they came into their respective primes, its just Jones went downhill first.