Name the fighters who would beat Hopkins on his best night.

The only chance I'll ever give Hopkins of beating Jones is if they were to both fight at their current abilities. But prime for prime Jones will always beat Hopkins.

 

Yeah, but that guy said Jones DID beat Hopkins on his best night....which is just as inaccurate as you can get.

This is a tough question tho. Hopkins has that ability to MAKE you fight his fight. Meaning, anyone fighting that version of Bernard would have to beat him at his own game....not an easy task.

 

Here we go with the " Hopkins was green " BS again. Just because Hopkins lost it doesn't mean he wasn't having a good night.

Hopkins WAS trying to make Jones fight his fight, but much like Jones had done with so many other opponents he neutralized Hopkins ability with his speed and reflexes.

 

So the Hopkins that fought Jones was Hopkins in his prime in your eyes? That is what you are saying?

 

Not prime, but not as far from prime as most people make out. And considering Jones was just as "green" as Hopkins with a possible injured hand, I personally think this win for Jones is under-rated.

 

While I am a Hopkins fan, I'm not such a bleeding heart bandwagoner that I can't make a simple comparison between that fight and the Tito fight ( which is seen as one of his best performances ) and see that both versions of Hopkins weren't drastically different from one another, rather than be like everyone else and just ASSUME that he was green by the simple fact that the fight happened when he was relatively young.

Let's take a look at Hopkins record..

Hopkins wins 22 consecutive bouts before losing to Jones for the IBF title. Jones moves up to SMW and just two years later Hopkins wins that very belt and holds onto it until finally losing to Taylor. Did Hopkins all the sudden hit his prime when Jones decided to move up in weight?

If you can point out to me any deficiencies in either Hopkins' ability or in his record that suggests that he wasn't at his best for the Jones fight, then I'll gladly change my opinion, but if you're just going to base it on the fact that he was young, then I've just wasted my time typing up this post.

 

Just wanted to say that Hopkins was in way better shape when he fought tarver as when he fought Winky. Its because he trained with Shilstone against Tarver. I think the best thing would be Shilstone as the strenght and conditioning and nutritioning coach and Roach as the real trainer who holds the midds ect. With this team Hopkins is really 10 years jounger.

 

James Toney

 

I think some people are forgetting how good and atheletic Roy Jones Jr was at his prime. Hopkins is very crafty but cannot hang with someone like RJJ in prime state. Look at some clips of old jones and you will see how gifted he was to be able to fight the way he did. Prime Jones wasn't hittable when it came to the center of the ring, and when he would be backed up to the ropes he would cover up in the ropes and counter.
If you look at an old Jones tape and pick the best fighter in the Light Heavy Weight division right now--you will see the evidence is clear.

Many say "well its just that people didnt know that you had to pressure jones to be able to beat jones. Tarver exposed him". Or that fighters were intimidated or that they were all bums. This is not true, many fighters were not intimidated by Jones and in fact tried to pressure him or impose their will on him but he was simply too fast and his offense was so good that they later became defensive as the fight progressed (reference Clinton Woods vs Roy Jones Jr or Vinny Paz vs RJJ).

 

I would agree except I would probably take out SRL and add Carlos.

 

Hopkins was very close to prime and Roy was not yet at prime either.

Both at peak prime ?

IMO, the margin of victory widens.

 

Let's not even consider LHW.

The guys you mention plus maybe fifty other LHW's .

BHOP is an ATG middle wt.

He's (1-1-0) at LHW

 

As this is boxing, I think the better question is who "could" beat Hopkins. And I think Toney on his best night could win. But as this is also Hopkins on his best night, I wouldn't favour it. Not laughable though. But who would win definately? That's bloody hard to say. At middle, perhaps only Jones. When above, more fighters (especially light heavy's). But even fighters like Hagler and Robinson at middle, while I believe are clearly the greater fighters on resume, head 2 head, it's hard to argue that they would definately beat Hopkins at his all time best 100% of the time. That's just not how boxing works.