Most impressive run: Hopkins, RJJ or Wlad?

I don't know about that, I have had too many debates with NoNeck about May, he knows his sh*t and digs his heals in , lol …

 

I have, he knows his stuff. The other thread has started. It's May -1 , RJJ - 0, but was a close call .. Good luck mate

 

Jackstraw,

He really didn't.

HBO along with his advisors tried to make the following fights:

Benn
Liles
Dariusz
Hopkins (2002)

Yes, I understand that they were both limited. But Ruiz was a 230 pound HW fighting a 34 year old LHW.

We can discuss his fall from grace whenever you want. But this thread is specifically focusing on his reign between 1997-2004.

 

You name the fighters and I'll tell you why they didn't happen.

You can't just dismiss them because you see a pattern.

They have to be excluded if there's valid reasons why.

 

I think he is a cool guy and pretty knowledgeable. Outside of RJJ threads I enjoy having dialogue with him on here.

 

You’re crazy if you think I’m taking that bait...my momma my have raised an ugly child but not a stupid one

 

There is no bait.

If you named 10 guys, it looks really bad. But if I gave you valid reasons as to why they didn't happen and I could provide proof, then you'd have to exclude them if you agreed, yes?

You can have 5 off of the top of my head:


Eubank:

He's admitted that fighting Roy in his prime would have been career suicide. He says that he never chased any of the big named U.S. fighters, as he was content to defend his WBO belt in Europe, on Sky and ITV.


Calzaghe:

He's admitted that he never chased Roy, as he didn't want tough fights. He's also claimed how very proud he his of his 21 WBO title defences at SMW.


Liles:

His trainer was furious with him for going back and asking for more money at the last moment when they'd got the fight lined up. (it was his biggest pay day at that point)


Hopkins (2002)

Claimed he wanted a 50/50 split during his famous argument with Roy, which was aired live on HBO. But when Mark Taffet of HBO met with him afterwards in private, he told Taffet that he'd only take the fight for $10m. He then spent a year out before challenging out all of the JMW champs.


Dariusz:

He and his promoter claimed that they'd be willing to listen to offers for him to go the U.S. to fight Roy. But Kerry Davis of HBO says that he tried everything he possibly could to meet with Dariusz' promoter, but he would never arrange a date for them to sit down. As a last resort, Davis faxed them over the proposal of a double header, which would have introduced Dariusz to the U.S. public. But without even wanting to discuss any of the specifics, it was turned down flat in an instant. Davis couldn't even get a figure from them to start the ball rolling.


That's 5 fighters.

And as frustrating at is was, it wouldn't matter if there were 15. Not if there were valid reasons like what's listed above.

For all the talk of Roy ducking fighters, there's only a handful of them who truly wanted to fight Roy when he was anywhere near his prime.

They were:

Benn
Collins
Nunn
Tarver

 

Not often one reads lists and ratings and Joe Blow would have been 23 but is 47 because of a couple of things he said. Bizarre.

 

Please clarify your point again.

I don't understand what you've said.

 

I'm saying i have never seen lists that penalize fighters for what they've said. We must also remember your interpretation might differ from mine or that of someone else.

 

Jones by a big margin. Even allowing for the Griffin DQ hiccup, Jones basically had an uninterrupted entire decade from 93/94 to 03/04 as one of the universally-acclaimed top pound for pound fighters in the sport, and was many people's clear number one for much of that run.

Hopkins never really got close to that kind of acclaim until after the turn of the century when he sewed up the Middleweight belts and outclassed Trinidad, albeit he was probably slightly underrated beforehand as his loss to Jones in 1993 and win over Johnson in 1997 both looked more forgivable and better respectively as the years passed.

The reason Hopkins' CV can even be put in the same ballpark as Jones' is largely due to what he's done after his peak years and long unbeaten run, old-manning younger, bigger guys and good punchers such as Tarver, Pavlik, Pascal and Cloud without ever having been put to sleep in circumstances as ignominious as Jones against Taver (II), Johnson, Lebedev, Maccarinelli etc. But his prime years, great though they were, aren't really in the same class as Roy's.

As for Wlad, I just don't think his career really matches up with either one of these guys, which isn't necessarily all his fault - he just didn't have the opponents available to him for long stretches. But again, as with Bernard, there's a bit of revisionism these days in terms of how his peak years were viewed. Even as late as 2008 his unification with Ibragimov got terrible reviews and was seen as the embodiment of all that was wrong with a once-great division which was now on its last legs. The losses to Sanders, Brewster and those multiple knockdowns against Peter were still pretty fresh in the memory for most people - I don't recall anyone really taking Wlad up as a great Heavyweight at that point. It's only when he outclassed Chagaev, beat Peter more convincingly in a return and took Haye's WBA belt between 2009-11 that people started accepting he was better than they thought.

I think over on this side of the pond, Wlad earned more plaudits and legacy points for his valiant loss, aged forty-one and out of the ring for eighteen months, against Joshua than he ever did for any of his successful title fights.

1) Jones 2) Hopkins 3) Wladimir

 

Okay, I'm with you now.

I misread it earlier.

No, it's not at all bizarre.

Why on earth would it be?

Now stop being silly. There is only one way his comments can be interpreted.

Every single factor affects the worth of something.

If a guy holds size advantages over all of his opponents, it's less impressive than if it was vice versa.

If a guy moves up to challenge himself against naturally bigger guys, it's more impressive than if it was vice versa.

That's how the worth of anything should be broken down.

You get pluses for some things, but a minus for others.

Now your example was exaggerated. When looking at an ATG list, of course you're not going to just move someone 20 places or more based on their comments. But when you're in a thread like this and you're comparing his reign to that of 2 others, then yes, his comments have a huge impact upon his rating.

After reading that he purposely avoided SMW and LHW early in his career, because fighting naturally smaller guys at MW was easier, then there's no way I could ever rate his reign as the most impressive. Because how could it be upon that admission? He's also admitted to dragging guys to weights they weren't familiar with in order to gain advantages. So you've got Roy who went up to HW and back, and you've got Bernard who shunned a rematch with Roy, to instead call out Oscar and Shane. It's a joke. So his reign absolutely suffers due to his admissions.

I think it's a joke for anybody to rate him no.1 in this thread.

I don't care if he cleaned out the division in a way that the other 2 didn't. At least they both fought the best guys available, instead of playing it safe.

Bernard was a bully. And he should be downgraded because of it.

 

Lol. No there is more than one way to interpret the intangibles.

You say Hops wanted 50/50
You say that is wrong
I say that is smart business
In a free market enterprise system (I don’t really want to debate economics 101) you are allowed to deem what you are worth. Both (the both is important) decided they were worth more than the negotiations displayed. That is not ducking (I used to believe RJJ ducked Hopkins, but as I’ve gotten older I don’t think either guy ducked the other) but rather a business decision based on risk and reward. It would be foolish to take less than you feel you are worth...and this is true for both not just for one. You can spin it however you want,

2 negotiating is not just about dollars. Please don’t tell me in a multi million dollar fight that the only thing to negotiate is a $ there are multiple factors which is why contracts are drawn up by agents and lawyers and are not 1 piece of paper documents but rather resemble books with the mitigating points of which money is but one.
Point = you make this solely about money, but we know that there was at least one other factor and probably many that we don’t know about. We know the negotiations were tried multiple times over the years, and continuously broke down. Money was a part but not the whole that you seem to think it is.

3 rematch clause
RJJ wanted one/ but wouldn’t give one
Hops wanted one/ and WAS willing to give one.

Now you only talk about the money. But why on earth would you risk $ and future earnings and not get fair or = market value, knowing that is things go wrong you have minimized your present earnings, hurt your future earnings and have no security that you will not have to wait years for another opportunity should the winds of chance blow your way.

This is just smart business
You seem the penalize Hopkins for desiring maximizing present and future earnings and desiring to secure a rematch should things go wrong.

While RJJ was just being generous and smart.

This is how facts get skewed or twisted or dare I say interpreted differently.

You make a great RJJ fan, and defender....but I think you would make (no offense) a horrible agent or lawyer.

 

Why on earth have you wrote out all of the above?

How many more times do I have to repeat myself?

Please read carefully:

I'm not talking generally about when they argued through the media between 1998-2002, where they took snipes at each other.

I'm not talking about their famous argument live on HBO, where Bernard wanted a 50/50 split.

I'm talking about the time AFTER that, when HBO's Mark Taffet met up with Bernard after the dust settled, a few weeks later.

Are you following what I'm saying?

I don't want to come across as being condescending, but you are not reading my posts properly.

When Taffet met with Bernard away from the cameras, HE DID NOT WANT A 50/50 Split.

Do you understand?

He did not want it.

Forget the live argument.

This is a different point in time that I'm referring to.

He no longer wanted a 50/50 split, and he never mentioned a rematch clause.

He wanted a guaranteed $10m, before he was willing to sit down and discuss the specifics.

It was one of the shortest meetings that Taffet ever had.

Again, it's nothing to do with how they were unable to reach a compromise.

This is about the 5th time I've explained it you now.

None of what you've written is relevant to what I'm talking about.

Yes, I agree with you, in that IF they'd have both sat down with their advisors, there would have been MANY things to have been discussed, as you've noted. I perfectly understand that. But they could never get to that stage where they sat down and negotiated. That's the point I'm making.

He said to Taffet "I want $10m or there's no fight"

Taffet then knew instantly that they couldn't work anything out and it was dead in the water.

Whether you like it or not, that's what happened.

It's nothing to do with me being biased for Roy and only seeing things from his side.

I don't need to be offended by your comments regarding me being a lawyer.

Bernard Hopkins deliberately priced himself of the fight because he did not want it.

His biggest purse back then had been $2.5m for the Tito fight. Taffet offered him $6m. He told him that Roy's share would be $8m, his would be $6m, and it included an extra fight on HBO. Bernard did not turn around and say that he also wanted $8m like Roy. Again, there was no requests/demands for rematch clauses etc.

This is the very last time I'm going to type this to you:

He demanded $10m or no fight.

That's it.

Case closed.

You know, I know, and everyone else knows, that that was a ridiculous demand, and it was his way of saying that he didn't want it.

He then had a year out of the ring before he fought Morrade Hakkar for around $1.3m.

After the fight, he never mentioned Roy's name.

After the fight, this is what he said:

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