If Hopkins beats Pavlik, does he surpass RJJ on the ATG list?

he will never be as good as jones.

 

What fight did you watch? Roy won that fight but it was far from an embarrassment! Stayed on his bicycle and landed just enough potshots to get a points win. Fair enough, but cmon...

Today Hopkins would beat RJJ like a rented mule. I don't know why he doesn't try to make this fight happen...


If B-Hop manages by skill and crafty treachery to get by the young slugger I'd think it'd be quite an accomplishment and should definitely add luster to his legacy.

 

Unless they had fought between '97-'02 when both were in their primes, then we have no idea who would have gotten the better of each other.

RJ beat him '93 but they were both green and both regretted to get in exchanges.

 

Very well said. I agree pretty much with everything you've said here.:good

 

Hopkins didn't land very many signifigant blows at all, Jones dominated based on clean punching. Was a very competative fight, but Hopkins was no where near as effective as Jones.

 

Hopkins already has a better resume than Jones. Plus he was not brutally KOed twice by average fighters. Jones only saving grace in this arguement his his H2H win over Hopkins which was so long ago it might not even be relevant.

 

If Jones dominated, how can it have been a competitive fight?

I stick to my post.

 

I felt like Jones landed the better shots by a wide margin, but Hopkins was in his face the whole fight, not letting Roy fight at the pace he wanted to.

 

You could tell Hopkins had Roy out of his comfort zone, but I still felt Roy landed the cleaner shots by a pretty wide margin.... I didn't give Hopkins 4 rounds, but there were a few rounds that would have went Hopkins' way if he could have only done a little more.:yep

 

HELL YES!

Hopkins has a stellar resume as it is, so if he managed to beat Kelly Pavlik who is in his prime, he'd have to get some recognition...finally.

 

That's seems like a pretty fair assessment. Really, my main objection was to the use of terms like 'domination' and 'embarrassment' to describe that fight.

As far as where RJJ and 'the Executioner' land on the generally accepted ATG list, I think the case can be made that B-Hop should be a little ahead (or at least equal) to RJJ and that if B-Hop wins and RJJ loses their respective next bouts this case becomes yet stronger.

For the record: I'll be rooting for RJJ over Calzaghe, though I think Cal will probably win by very clear UD or maybe even KO.

And : Pavlik over B-Hop, as Kelly (especially at this point) is the more entertaining fighter and I think it would be better for boxing in general for folks such as Hops and RJJ and DLH and Tito and Winky to 'fade off into Bolivian'. :hi:

 

When you look at the whole body of work, you have to look at the way RJJ lost some of his fights. Hopkins was never dominated. His only convincing loss was to RJJ.

And how about the P4P fighters Hopkins has faced? How many has RJJ faced?

I don't think it's a horrible idea to put Hopkins ahead RIGHT NOW. If he beats Pavlik, that's another HUGE win.

 

This is a very difficult question to answer. After a lot of thought, I have to say I say no, I stick with Jones Jr.

Hopkins has coped with age better, but I don't think that is enough with the win over Pavlik to then assert that he was a greater fighter than Jones.

Jones beat Hopkins convincingly, and he was simply a greater, more talented fighter throughout his peak years.

If Hopkins beats Pavlik, his resume will then be better than Jones's, and so he has a very strong case to be thought of as the greater fighter, but my own belief is RJJ's wins over Hopkins and Toney are both better than anything on Hopkins's record, so by virtue of the fact his ability allowed himself to scale greater heights than Hop, he should (narrowly if Hop beats Pav) still be considered the greater fighter p4p.

 

Coming from a man who is a bigger fan of Hopkins than Jones, I think not.

If he does defeat him in this stage of his career, especially if it's a Tarver-like performance, I would rate them quite close to each other (and from my own personal bias I wouldn't argue with Hopkins being higher), but Jones would still be around 5 spots higher on my personal all-time list. Right now it's 10-15 spots IMO, and another upset win (especially one so far past his best) would close most of that gap.

 

You have some good points, but Roy wasn't beaten at all untill he was very faded, and the only other time was revenged by a first round KO against a pfp fighter.

Hopkins is one of my favorite fighters also, and don't wanna critisize him, but I think Roy still has an edge on him. If Hopkins beats Pavlik and RJJ looses to Calzaghe, I would think very seriously about putting Hopkins above Jones.