What middle age fighter has the best performance post 40 years of age, maybe it was Archie Moore? maybe Larry Holmes vs McCall and Mercer, maybe Foreman maybe Duran maybe Holyfield vs Valuev
Hopkins' efforts against Tarver & Pavlik are the best I've ever seen a 40+ fighter look. He was more impressive in there than a lot of really, really good fighters are at their absolute peaks.
which ever one fought the BEST competitors, without thinking about I'd say Forman, but possibly it was Duran.
i liked him in both fights, but tarver is the most hyped LHW fighter of the past 10 years, its a good shout he looked imense against pavlik. he ended his career.
yeah thats semi true, but moorer beat the crap out of him and took him apart in every round moorer looked so good, then a pair of 1-2 combos and moorers carrer was over, its funny when ever an older fighter beats a young guy who is flying at the time about to go onto the next level, the older guy ends up destroying the younger guys career, hopkins-pavlik for instance.
tarver was trash though, i'll give it to hopkins in the pavlik fight because kelly was absolutly flying at the time, his more recent fights he is effectivly cheating and using dirty tactics to win fights.
overated bigtime was pavlik, but yes BHop fought a beautiful fight, the only one I really credit him with, that and DLH, though Oscar is the much smaller fighter as were many of Bhops victories!
Agree on the Pavlik fight. I honestly think Hopkins might have ruined him mentally. That was a spanking.
Those are probably the top choices, but one I always remembered but had to recheck because it was a bit amazing at the time was 41 year old Ralph Moncrief stopping Michael Olajide in 8 rounds. I'm sure there are several more singular ones such as that.
The previous 9 rounds make that a difficult case to argue for me. He won, and won big but for 9 rounds he was a moving punchbag. I like Bhop over Pavlik, but I may be biased as I saw it live. Here in the UK I have to watch these big fights at like 5-5:30am and that can take a lot of lustre of a fight. That B-Hop performance made me start shouting at the tv. When does B-Hop showboat seriously? That would be like JCC Sr showboating (he did in one fight I recall, mabye Haugen).
