Possibly the two greatest ring generals of all-time, two complete fighters with solid power, excellent defense, and granite chins. My #1 Middleweight against my #2 or #3 (Not definitive). It's tough to say who dictates and controls the fight, so I'm going to lean towards B-Hop, who had better hand & foot speed in his prime, and also has a hieght and reach (I believe) advantage. Tough fight to call. How do you see it? (By the way, Monzon is the #1 Middleweight I mentioned and Hopkins is either #2 or #3 in my mind).
Two big, tough Middleweights with very good defenses. I think the difference is that Monzon had the more consistent offense. I think his jab and the ocassional sneak right hand that he'd land would put rounds in the bank and get him the decision. I think it would be something like 10-5. I think a lot of Hopkins but like you, Monzon is my #1 Middleweight.
Monzon UD 15. Too much pressure for bernard who wont risk the extra work rate when falling behind. (bernards biggest failing.)
Well,i cant forget that against jones he needed to step up and take risks and he just didnt. He was in his twenties then,and roy had only one good hand....
Well, that wasn´t so much he just didn´t more that he didn´t know how. That´s at least my impression. He became much better later in in many departments like adjusting his tactics to an opponent.
I just have a gut feeling when watching hopkins that he is a notch below the true elites in history because of his negativity v superior opposition. Great technical skills,but mising the X factor....(if you forgive the pun.)
Which negativity against superior opposition? If the opposition is superior you will always lose, no matter what. If you mean great opposition than he fought Jones, Trinidad, DLH and Calzaghe, a borderline great in Wright and at least two very good fighters in Johnson and Tarver. He´s 5-2 against them with one loss disputable. If you want throw in Taylor he is 5-4 with three disputable losses. Sorry but what you are talking is just wrong.
By superior i mean great. Against jones he lacked fire,ditto taylor twice. Ditto calzaghe. He beat a lacklustre weight drained tarver well. His win against de la hoya is crap as hoya was NEVER EVER a good middle,just a marquee name. Trinidad and wright were much smaller men,felix being one dimensional by then and wright plain fat. Johnson was a very good win over a green glencofee who was at his wrong weight division at the time....Lets also not forget his draw with mercado. Truth is bernard never beat a great natural middle,and lost three times to natural middles. Bernards best win was against trinidad,who in hindsight was never a great middle,just a great puncher who could be easily outboxed....
Wow, with this method i can talk down every single resume of every single fighter. And 99.9% of the time it´s just bs. Like here. Yeah he lost against Jones but while Jones just entered his prime B-Hop hadn´t reached his yet. He lost to Tarver in the books, i had it 1-0-1, and that was when he was already past it and in his 40s. Quite an accomplishment actually. He "lost" to a top3-p4p fighter while beeing 43, bringing him to the bring of defeat, imo Hopkins won. Yeah, sure should count against him Oh, yeah Tarver was weight drained. Another excuse. Tarver was the reigning lhw champ and a big favourite and Hopkins stepped up two weightclasses to dominate him. Well, DLH was a jmw for years and is a great fighter, yeah he was smaller than B-Hop but Hopkins didn´t impose his size on DLH, he fought him on even terms and knocked him out while beeing 39 years old. Trinidad proved himself to be an excellent mw, a top10 p4p fighter and was a big favourite to beat Hopkins just to get dominated and knocked out. Wright was above his best weight i agree but Hopkins was above his best weight also and was far more past his best than Wright. Additionally, Wright was the favourite. Hopkins beat Wright at his own game, took away his assets and did to him what nobody ever has done to him. Oh, yeah. Johnson was green with 32 fights in the pocket. Hopkins knocked him out and Johnson would go on to beat Jones and Tarver, become lhw champ and was never ever knocked out again. Very good win. Well, he had a draw with Mercado, at Mercados home turf after beeing knocked down serveral times. Sure, that´s nothing and that he knocked him out in the rematch isn´t worth anything right? So tell me, what great middle did Monzon beat? What great middle did Hagler beat? Correct. None. Sorry, but your argument holds absolute no water.
Monzon beat great 160 champ valdez twice,160 great champ benveneuti twice,beat great 160 champ emille griffith twice,all great middles. I didnt even mention hagler,who has similiar faults as hopkins resume and tactics wise.
The Jones fight does not come into play here. Monzon does not fight like Jones. It's like me trying to use Hagler vs. Leonard as a barometer for how well Hagler would have done against Monzon. And, for what it's worth, Hopkins was bringing the fight to Jones in the end. He was also binging the fight to Taylor at the end of their fights. These were all cases of Hopkins falling too far behind early, and against opponents that were not pressuring him. Monzon would not have been passive, and would have mounted more of an offense. An offense that Hopkins would have more options to counter. I think that Hopkins' edge in speed, and ability to move about, would allow him to outbox Monzon. Hopkins UD
I pick Hopkins 9-6 or 8-4, he has more variety, better defense, better timing and a better inside game and the ultimate tactician that always took away his opponents strengths and jumped on their weaknesses LMAO at people saying Hopkins didnt have the workrate, they can only have been watching boxing 4 years.