Is Hopkins really past it? Compubox perspective ~ Now with Roy Jones' latest stats!

While Compubox is not 100% accurate and it’s results are not really good points in arguments (especially in round by round arguments), it can be used to get a statistic perspective of a fight. The fighter who USUALLY outlands the other one, usually wins. In controversial fights punch-stats usually show that the fighter who was robbed landed the more shots. Of course Compubox can’t separate a nice clean power punches from a barely landed, softer shots, but what is important, that if it lands, it counts, and if there are no cracking, stunning blows from the other fighter, the one who lands more usually wins the rounds at the judges.

Compubox is even more useful if you’re looking for evidence how far a fighter is past his prime. Number of total punches and percentages are dropping. Older fighters are usually getting hit more, letting their opponents throw more and not being able to defend as many punches as in the prime days. Also their accuracy is dropping.



Let’s see Hopkins' punch stats. I’ll use the Felix Trinidad (2001), Winky Wright (2007), Joe Calzaghe (2008 ), and Kelly Pavlik (2008 ) numbers as prime vs. ‘over the hill’ Hopkins.

BHop usually cuts down opponents stats and accuracy, you can see that the busy fighters in Tito, Winky, Joe and Kelly weren’t as busy as usual. Punches thrown: Tito: 329, Wright 618, Calzaghe 707, Pavlik 463. The this clearly shows that despite being 40+ in his recent fights, he was able to cut down opponent’s stats, that’s 30% less punches even for Calzaghe.

On the landing stats and percentages, there’s no big difference at all: Tito 129/329, 39%, Wright 167/618, 27%, Calzaghe 232/707, 33%, 108/463, 23%. In all of his 40+ fights, his opponents landed at a lower percentage, that indicates that Hopkins defense became even better after Tito.

How many Hopkins threw? Vs. Tito: 653, vs. Winky: 640, vs. Calzaghe: 468, vs. Pavlik: 530. That clearly shows that in 2007, he was still able to land as many as in the Tito fight, and he landed ‘only’ 530 was simply because what he did was enough to win rounds. Hopkins always comes late, and his high number for both thrown and landed punches was in the 12th vs. Pavlik.

How many did he land, and%: vs. Tito: 260/653, 40%, vs. Winky: 152/640, 24%, vs. Calzaghe 127/468, 27%, vs. Pavlik: 172/530, 32% (49% of power punches).



What conclusions can we make?

- despite not having the same stamina as back than in the Tito days, he’s still capable of throwing 600+ punches, still landing at a high connect percentage
- still cutting down opponents’ stats and letting just few punches getting in
- still good in the championship rounds (the fight went his way in the last rounds vs. Winky, almost stopped Pavlik and Tarver late, always had energy late)
- vs. Winky he landed the least % of punches, that clearly shows who well was Winky’s defense at 170. Punch output shows that despite Hopkins cut his numbers, Winky was able to bring out his usual pace: statistically the weight at he fought doesn’t seem that had an effect on his game. Stats say it's untrue that Winky wasn’t good in this fight
- Pavlik only landed 55 of his power punches, meaning he landed 4,5 power punches per round, that’s even worse than Tito did (landing 98 power punches). Hopkins landed at a higher % with his power shots (vs. Tito: 44%, vs Kelly: 49%)
- the Calzaghe fight is the interesting. It’s the only fight ever in BHop looked old and out of energy, people started to say that age caught up with him, can you blame them? Calzaghe’s output was cut, but still threw the most punches Hopkins ever had to deal with, meaning he had to do a lot on the defensive side, therefore ran out of gas as Calzaghe’s output didn’t drop – Joe’s thrown and the landed punches per round even increased in the later rounds!
- Calzaghe landed the most punches on Hopkins ever, although it is fair to say that with not the same effect as BHop landed on him. BUT! The punches started to have it’s effects from round 6 and on, as Hopkins was forced to go spoiling, hugging and faking to buy some air as Calzaghe’s energy level never came down. Calzaghe landed almost as many as Tito and Pavlik combined, more than Taylor in 2 fights. Calzaghe was also caught with less punches than Wright
- only 2 fighters landed at a higher percentage on Hopkins since Roy: Wright 3% more, Calzaghe 6% more. These are the same 2 fighters who could outland BHop: Wright by 15 punches, Calzaghe by 105 punches
- in Wright’s numbers the jabs are dominating, in the power punch category Hopkins outlanded Winky by 63 punches and ultimately that made the difference. However Calzaghe was able to outland Hopkins in the power punch category as well (landing 108 more, 8% more)
- vs. the less adaptable, less energetic, less crafty opponent in Pavlik, Hopkins was back at the high number of punches thrown (530), landed (172), percentages (32% of total, 49% of power punches landed). The usual late round advantage was there. SPEED ADVANTAGE was there. He put combos together better than ever. Overall, he got caught with less punches and less %s than in the Tito fight.



These numbers show that Hopkins is just as good on the statistic side as he was back in 2001, in some areas (defense), even better. Still can still throw and land a lot. Still has great power and movement to take over the fight and cut opponent’s stats. Still has the speed to counter and land more shots than the opponent.

Overall these stats shows that Bernard Hopkins hasn’t aged one single day.

(note: this thread is not about BHop in his recent fights, vs. the young American, the Welshman, or the jab master, it's about comparing the current Hopkins to the prime one)

 

Then again: statistics shouldn't be used as deciding factors who won what, but can be used to show tendencies, like an aging fighter, lack of stamina, reflexes, accuracy, dropping punch output and percentages. No science needed to see the correlation between numbers/tendencies and actual signs of a fighter getting over the hill... there's a pattern to this in the stats... In this thread I just wanted to state that these not-so-accurate, but pretty useful numbers overall show that Hopkins is ain't done yet, and barely getting hit more or punching less. Putting on a great performance was predictable based on previous stats of his, as these stats are based on actual fights. It shouldn't be used to score fights or rounds or to judge a RESULT, but IMO those who can read them, can get another view on the same thing.