Is Golovkin's reign better than Hopkins?

There is no foolishness.

Short arms?

I said that he made huge sacrifices to fight at MW, a division where he had height and reach advantages over many of his opponents, instead of being in the mix at SMW and LHW.

Instead of pursuing guys like Roy and Toney etc, he was at MW at 6'1 with a 75" reach, trying to get JMW's in Oscar and Winky to move up and fight him.

Fair enough, he consistently made MW. So he was within his rights to fight there and pursue the most lucrative fights. But I don't see at as a great reign. Because it would have been a bigger challenge to fight the top SMW-LHW's of the time instead of guys like Oscar.

 

At MW?

You're talking utter nonsense.

 

Yes he was, he said so himself

 

Perhaps I am being a tad unfair as all of the fights I remember Hopkins having against rated opposition he chose to fight in spots.

 

Lineal reigns are all very nice but there are a number of issues with them that would mitigate against becoming overly religious about them.

For one thing, there's often a degree of subjectivity and arbitrariness about who is linear (or lineal) and when they became linear.

Three examples from the TBRB thread come to mind.


Is Joshua the linear HW champion ?

Not according to the TBRB.

(When Lennox Lewis retired, he took linearity with him and so a new line had to be established. It took a while, but eventually, Wlad Klitschko met most folks' criteria for the honour. When he lost to Fury, again there was a break, and a #1 versus #2 was required to start the line again.

Whn Joshua defeated Wlad, Joshua was ranked #1.

Wlad was the #2 but due to inactivity (somewhat beyond his control as Fury folded mentally while Wlad was waiting for his rematch) he was technically unranked at the time of the Joshua fight. This unranked status was pretty much arbitrary as Wald was, in the eyes of most, the #2 guy at the weight. Had the fight taken place five months earlier, Joshua would have established a new linearity. And nothing much changed in status for either fighter in those 150 or so days.

Now suppose Wilder can avoid Joshua for the next couple of years and Joshua cleans out the remainder of the division (Ortiz, Parker, Povetkin, Pulev etc) but never gets to become 'linear, ' would his reign be any less worthy than say, that of Leon Spinks, who was a linear HW champion ?



Second example: Floyd retired after his 49th bout and ended the linear line for 147. Manny Pacquaio had subsequently been ranked # 1 in March, 2016 and Bradley was then ranked at #2. Pac 'retired' for a few days before coming back in April 2016 to fight Bradley for the third time. This brief ( and meaningless) hiatus resulted in him being 'unranked' when he defeated Tim, and thus, not being 'linear champion' when he lost to Horn.

Save for some very arbitrary 'conventions,' the Aussie would be putting his Linear title on the line against Terence Crawford in the near future. If Crawford goes on to clean up the division (Porter, Spence, Garcia etc, but fails to face Thurman opt some other #1, will his reign be less worthy because of the omission?



Third example: Canelo came by the linear MW title by defeating the smaller and older Cotto, who himself was fortunate to grab it from an old and injured Martinez. Canelo never defended the linear title at the full weight, and eventually, vacated his alphabet title rather than face the obvious top dog in the division in a fight where 160 lb linearity would have been on the line.

Eventually, Canelo ended the fiction by declaring that he was NOT champion at MW. However, he did it a week or two after the two other highest ranked fighters in the division had fought. Had he cleared the air a week or two earlier, GGG would have established a new lineage. Nothing changed, and no fights took place involving GGG, Canelo or Jacobs in that period. Yet again, arbitrarily, GGG failed to garner universal recognition as linear at 160.



The aforementioned examples illustrate that even the very best and fairest of ranking bodies (the TBRB) can trip over its own rules and will sometimes have to sacrifice common sense and judgment at the altar of consistency of rules.

So while linearity is a laudable and prized addition to a boxer's resume, other factors need to be considered, especially if it involves rebuilding a lineage after a linear champ has taken linearity with him to his rocking chair.




After all that, to the thread question.

Comparing the resumes and the dominance of both Hopkins and GGG, there is not a lot to separate them.
I will not go too far into the swamp here in discussing Tito and Oscar's size compared to Bernard's, nor the fact that Robert Allen had a trilogy with BHop, nor similar concerns about some of GGG's defences, but IMO, little separates the two men in terms of MW resume. A case could be made for either man.
(Bernard's greatness, IMO, rests more on what he did after MW both in terms of resume there ....Tarver, Pavlik, Pascal etc, and in terms of his age)

I do consider what Luf terms the 'eye test' to some degree when ranking fighters (I weight resume at about 66 % and the eye test at 33%), and I believe that Bernard would be a slight favourite over GGG head to head, best for best, at the weight. So I would rank Bernard as a slightly better Middleweight.

But only by inches.



And GGG is still active.

 

It's pretty easy if you actually just rate the wins among each other all the way down.

Boxed Ears' post on page 1 says it all.

Golovkin's best win is a razor close debated one over Jacobs. Beyond that he has Lemieux, Murray, Geale, and a welterweight. Golovkin has a very impressive reign that shoots him into P4P talk for longevity and quantity but that is matched by Hopkins in this conversation and the quality edge goes to Hopkins. That said, lets see what Golovkin has yet to do. For all we know he decisively beats Canelo, Jacobs, Saunders, and Murata back to back and then this answer probably becomes the opposite. If Canelo decisively beats Golovkin in a rematch up next, then to say it is case closed for history in favor of Hopkins might even be an understatement.

 

Using height and reach to prove a point is meaningless. Hearns was taller and rangier than Hagler, nobody thinks Hearns was a naturally bigger man vs Hagler.

Sure he fought 1 fight at cruiser weight but that was after he had just came out of prison and nobody knows what he looked like then unless they actually watched that fight. He could of been unnaturally bulked up from lifting weights or even just been overweight and carrying extra body fat.

You explanation for him not rehydrating doesn't make sense. You say he kept himself below his natural weight, that can only be done 2 ways one losing water weight then rehydrating or starving himself and losing muscle mass which is detrimental to a fighers performance as seen by De La Hoya or RJJ when they did it and looked a shadow of their former selves.

You seem to be suggesting he kept himself below his natural weight. So if he was a former cruiserweight as you suggest and starved himself and lost all that muscle then **** me he must have been superhuman because then we basically saw a version of Hopkins at middleweight which was the equivalent of the Oscar that fought Pac, imagine how good Hopkins would of been without shedding 15-20lbs of muscle. Obviously this is garbage as is the idea that Hopkins had magical powers and could basically show up in the ring like an anorexic and still perform. Doesn't matter how disciplined you are anyone draining below their bodies natural physical weight would be negatively effected.

Yes Hopkins was incredibly disciplined but that doesn't change the fact what you are saying he did is physically impossible. Also the whole mythos around Hopkins training and discipline gets over hyped. He has admitted before he has a weakness for cheesecake. He trained harder than most and was more disciplined than most in regards to his diet but lets not build it up to something it wasn't. Holyfield was known to be an amazingly hard trainer as was Hagler, Pac too was legendary in the gym for the work he put in. I don't expect any of them to defy human physiology and show up 15-20 lbs below their weight and expect them to perform the same.

In regards to his ambition, he perhaps could of been more ambitious, I could say the same about many fighters including RJJ. But my point still stands he was a natural middleweight. Yes he could of gone up earlier in weight, but to fight who?

RJJ wasn't interested until after he beat Tito and neither could agree terms. Toney was MIA after the loss to RJJ and never fought at the same weight at Hopkins. Hopkins did sign to fight Toney remember and did so when he had to jump up 3 weight classes, only reason the fight didn't happen is because King tried to drop his purse by $1 mill, he wanted Bhop to jump 30lbs in weight for only 2.5 mill when Hopkins was already making a guaranteed $1 mill minimum. It didn't make business sense.

Fact is nobody was queuing up or calling out Hopkins before he beat Tito, the idea he could just move up and champions would face him is crazy. Before Tito any move up in weight would not have made any sense. Remember Hopkins wasn't even a title holder when Toney moved up to light heavyweight. Was Hopkins meant to jump up 2 weights and have Toney agree to fight him when he wasn't even a middleweight champion?

Perhaps Ottke or Cazaghe? Why would he move up to face them before Tito? No real reward, would they even want to fight him then, they weren't calling him out.

Calzaghe is really the only fighter I think he should of fought sooner, that showtime deal was a good offer but the fact was Hopkins wanted Oscar that for him was a more lucrative fight and the I think that's why he didn't move up. There simply was more money to be made against De La Hoya and a possible rematch with Tito.

 

I remember Roy saying that it was difficult to make 168 and that he would always re-hydrate quite a lot.
Makes sense, because he was rather muscular.

 

Yep he wasn't a natural middleweight once he was fully developed, he was pretty muscular and shredded as **** at middleweight. He usually weighted 185lbs in the ring for his performances at light heavy which was more than Calzaghe weighted in the ring and his struggles to make weight at super middleweight were well known. RJJ probably walked around at 190lbs when at light heavy, I doubt Hopkins as ever been that heavy.

While Hopkins weighed 164-165lbs at middleweight during his prime, 168lbs vs Taylor and and didn't even break 180lbs for most of his fights at light heavy but some will have you believe Hopkins was a natural light heavy or even a fricken cruiserweight. Most Hopkins ever weighed in the ring was 185lbs vs Tarver and that was after bulking up with the help of Mackie Shilstone and after that his weight dropped as he couldn't maintain that much muscle mass.

 

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Hopkins is a lean guy.
And i believe him.
(He looked more muscular vs Taylor than he did vs Smith.)

 

Lol nice, he's retired but walks around at 174lbs, below the light heavy limit but according to some he's a natural light heavy.

 

IMO Canelo is a great fighter. Has my respect. Im not a huge fan but I give credit where credit is due. Lemiux, Macklin, Monroe, Murray, Rubio, Geale,Wade, Rosado, Stevens and even Jacobs in a spirited performance looked very overwhelmed at times just to name a few.. I know none are among the elite but all decent fighters. Either way like I said on my post I favor Hopkins but its debatable. BHOP also has a huge number of tomato cans on his record with whom he managed to go the distance. If it wouldnt have been for Tito's victory BHOP wouldve been nothing but the ex fellon who lost to Roy Jones.. Im not taking credit away from anyone bro. Just stating my opinion. Cheers