If You Knock Bernard Hopkins For His Biggest Wins at 160lbs being Against Welters..

Taylor gets alot of **** for fighting smaller guys so it's only fair.

 

You can't knock Hopkins for his biggest wins being against Trinidad and De La Hoya. You can't knock Hagler's biggest wins being Duran and Hearns(shoulda been Leonard). You can't knock Monzon's biggest wins being against Napoles and Griffith. Those guy's were all great fighter's. You can however knock Jermain Taylor for fighting Ouma and Spinks.

 

bump.

i am bored. Just keep browsing old threads hehe..

 

All long reigning champ would have beaten guys moving up at some point in their career, it not unusual at all. And you cant blame Hop or Hag for fighting lighter guy when you consider who those lighter guys were. Tito was a middleweight champ himself as was DLH although contraversially and they were biggest names at the time,,,Hopkins - Tito was for the unified undisputed title and DLH is the biggest name in boxing.

In fact I would say every champion who reigned for a reasonable amount of time has defended against a guy who has fought at a lower weight division.

Im struggling to think of one that didint... :huh

 

I often bring up Hagler's comparison, and you are failig to see the big picture.

The light weight guys opkins fought achieved absolutely nothing at the weight Hopkins fought them at. We're talking, combined, the best win the lot have is a mockery of a decision over Sturm and a win over Joppy by Trinidad. That list of opponents achieved nothing at the weight they faced Hopkins at. Undeniable fact.

However, the people Monzon and Hagler faced actually proved themselves to be capabale fighters at middleweight. Not only were they better fighters in the smaller divisions, but they also proved themselves at middleweight level.

Hopkins and Monzon beat smaller guys who proved themselves at middlweight. Hopkins didn't. Therefore, you cannot act like people are hypocrites as there is an obvious difference in the two cases.

 

Well the Sturm fight may have been contraversial but Tito was a legit WBA champ, beating Joppy who was a very good middleweight, he went on to be ranked number 2 a long time before Hopkins beat him, very underestimated fighter.

Hopkins problem was that he didnt have a glamourous middleweight division, where he was so much better than everybody else. This is a problem with a lot of long reigning Champs, Marciano, Ali, Louis, tyson all knocked over guys who fought at light heavyweight.

All long reigning champs have fought guys naturally smaller than them. In fact I think they have to to make the most amount of money.

Lets not forget Hopkins has gone onto win the world title at 175...

 

can i just mention haglers size.

he wasnt a big man most of his opponant were taller than him and were atg already even if they were 13 pounds below. anyways most of these guys won titles at higher wiegths after.

hearns went to supermiddle and light heavy
ray leonard fought at supermiddlewieght and fought a natural light heavy
duran beat iran barkley and was stationed at middlewieght till his 50's

none of hopkins opponants can do that none could get over the middlewieght barrior.

also i would like to mention what a speed bump the middlewieght division is. people can be succesful from around super-feather to jnr-middle but middlewieghts natural hieght is 6ft while jnr middles are 5'10....thats a big difference it is very hard to campiegn at that wiegth from welter to jnr middle.

 

Glen Johnson went on to fight a 168 title and won the 175lb championship, Vanderpool, Echols all competed at 168 aswel, and Tarver was reigning Ring Chanp at light heavy when Hopkins beat him.

he is also in line to face the reigning super middleweight champ in Calzaghe in a defence of his light heavyweight title, well, in theory anyway.

 

If Trinidad was the naturally smaller man, why was he favored to beat Hopkins? Too many people are saying that AFTER the fact.

 

i phrased it wrong
i was saying tito oscar and winky wouldnt of been as competative at these higher wieghts.

comparing them to haglers top 2 of leonard, hearns and duran

 

Okay, i'll admit Hearns had a right to be feared at MW cuz he knocked out
Duran like that, but what had Leonard done to be considered at legit MW
contender when he fought Hagler? And Trinidad was at least as legit when
he fought Hopkins as Mugabi was when he went up to 160 to fight Hagler.
A lot of people were shocked at how great Tito looked when he knocked
out Joppy like that and actually started to look past Hopkins and prepare
for a Jones fight. Also, Hopkins has also fought more bigger men than Hagler
like Johnson, Vanderpool, Echols 2X, and Tarver.

 

Everyone moves up in weight as they age. I can understand the DLH win as being discredited as that was not his natural weight. Besides, everyone knew DLH had no shot. DLH just did it for the money as he did it for the money against PBF.

But if a guy is moving up in weight naturally and the champ beats him, that should not be discredited. It's when a guy goes out of his way to jump in weight that you have to take with a grain of salt. So that's why i think Tito and Tarver are huge wins while Wright and DLH wins are a bit less credible. If not credible, a lot less impressive than Tito and Tarver.

 

It's because they lack objectivity and can't see both sides of the story. If i'm not mistaken, Tito was like a 4:1 favorite.

 

Exactly!

The difference with Ouma and Spinks was that they jumped up in weight just for this fight and then moved back down. In those instances, it's harder to give Taylor for those wins because he didn't fight those guys at their best weight.

But the other instances, the guys naturally filled out and the weight they fought at was their natural weight. People talk as if everyone stays at the same weight class their whole careers.