Now Taylor has been beaten...will Americans accept Hopkins is nothing special now?

Hmm... Hopkins and Taylor don't have similar styles at all.

 

Regardless of how he looked last time out when coming off a lay-off of over a year preceded by a crushing defeat, Tarver was the legitimate reigning light heavyweight champion of the world coming off wins over Jones and Johnson when Hopkins beat him, and Hopkins- at 42 years old and coming straight up from middleweight, no less- not only beat him, but smeared him. This is a HUGE accomplishment.

It seems your method of assessing fighters(at least American fighters, anyway) is to choose whichever outing of theirs reflects on them the worst and ignore anything and everything else about them and their careers.
Fact is, Taylor was an Olympic medalist and was undefeated in 24 pro fights when he fought Hopkins. Hopkins was the reigning middleweight champion, hadn't been beaten in over a decade, and had beaten multiple future Hall-of-Famers. He was a near universally top five pound-for-pound ranked fighter, and in fact was #1 on most people's lists. Taylor twice went more or less even with him and was awarded the decision.
He then proceeded to take on Wright, who hadn't been beaten in nearly seven years, had beaten multiple future Hall-of-Famers and was a near universally top five pound-for-pound ranked fighter, top three on most people's lists at the time. Taylor also went more or less even with him, and the fight was ruled a draw.
After this, Taylor took on a man who, although he was not on the level of the aforementioned previous two opponents, was still arguably the best junior middleweight in the world in Ouma, and although the fight was awkward and lackluster, Taylor got the job done and soundly outpointed Ouma. Next up was Spinks, who was one of the best welterweights/junior middleweights of the last five years, and who Taylor also outpointed in lackluster-but-workmanlike fashion.

Fact is, although Taylor never looked dominant, he was taking on about the highest caliber of opposition you could possibly ask for and was going even or better against it in those first three fights, and then was going a little better than even against a notch or two lower level of opposition in the last two. Anyone who does what Taylor did in those five straight fights is absolutely a legitimate top-tier world-class fighter.

Moreover, even this loss is not any shame at all on Taylor. Pavlik, in case you haven't noticed, was 31-0 with 28 knockouts, coming off a dominant knockout win over one of the most feared and dangerous contenders around, and Taylor had him down and hurt and was ahead on the scorecards before Pavlik caught him with some monstrous punches and stopped him. Fact is, Pavlik is one of the best in the business right now and is possibly the hardest hitting middleweight alive. He would have a puncher's chance against most anyone, and it came into play against Taylor. Taylor was not blown out or disgraced, and as I say, actually had Pavlik down and was leading before the knockout. It certainly wouldn't be any great surprise if Taylor won in a rematch between the two. Your entire "everyone-is-bad-because-one-guy-lost-one-fight" deck of cards is not only flimsy on every story, but fails to hold up on its very foundation as well.

Let's see... Wright has a career record of 51-4-1, has soundly defeated two of the pound-for-pound greatest fighters of the last decade who will be absolute locks for the Hall of Fame(Mosley and Trinidad), and has lost only one fight in nigh eight years. But wait! He had a draw against the undefeated middleweight champion of the world who was coming off back-to-back wins over one of the greatest fighters alive and would later go on to- egad!- lose a fight!!!:scaredas: Clearly a bum.

Let's see, here: 12 years of domination over the middleweight division with wins over two legendary future Hall-of-Famers... two extremely narrow and debatable losses to an undefeated Olympic Medalist who does the same thing against another pound-for-pound elite immediately afterwards... extremely dominant win over the world light heavyweight champion... and still another win over a pound-for-pound elite and future Hall-of-Famer, pulled off at 42 years old! Yes, clearly Hopkins is nothing but an overrated hype-job whose paltry accomplishments pale in comparison with those of legends like Mikkel Kessler. *(that last sentence was dripping with intense sarcasm, by the way)

Hopkins is an absolute legend and possibly the greatest fighter of the last 15 years.

This is even more comical, since you're now arguing that American boxing is bad because one American fighter beat another American fighter for the world championship!

 

Seriously.....STFU. Fighter A beating Fighter B bull****. Your better than that.

 

:good Hopkins is an ATG and a boxing legend...end of this ****ing discussion.

 

Hopkins is somehow a fraud when Pavlik came close to getting TKO'd by a milk dud who hadnt dropped anybody in about 3 years?? I like Pavlik and even admit he's a Fighter of the Year so far but he's not the new Jake Lamotta just yet.

 

Bit harsh - and not gonna win you many american friends.
But nevertheless what happens.

From now on most americans will simply assume that Hopkins, Winky, Taylor AND Pavlik would easily beat the likes of Calzaghe and Kessler.

As long as none of these "names" **** up by actually making a fight with the likes of Calzaghe, the americans can all remain happy in this fantasy world where they rule the totally rule the P4P-lists.

The same ppl will continue to state (and possibly believe) that SMW on a whole is utter crap - simply bc there are no americans at the top of it. (Except Lacy - who's status is a bit undecided).

The "names" will then avoid it like the plague, jump over it like hopkins or only stop there to fight an american who's not even top-10 and then quickly move on, claiming they've done all there is to do there.

...oh wait - did i also anger the yanks now? Was i a little harsh too? Even blasphemous?

Damn - they comming for me now....they look angry...:hi:

 

It does put Hopkins' accomplishments into a new perspective.

I always maintain that Hopkins' stint at MW was never top 5 MW ATG material. However his losses to Taylor were all close and disputed. By the way I never bought the excuse that Hopkins was past his best when he fought Taylor.

Tonight's result definitely does not help the cause of those who claimed Hops is within top 3 greatest MW atg.

 

Good post, Dumdane - I always enjoy your posts, but you should post more

 

The only way Hopkins was exposed tonight was by learning he didn't have the tenacity or power of Pavlik when he fought Taylor - as if that comes as a surprise:roll:

 

:good - someone should give Toopretty a big ass mirror.

 

no, will Europeans acknowledge that Calzaghe hasn't fought enough competition yet

 

Hey, CHJ, is there any good US fighters. All I ever hear from you lately is "US BIAS", "OVERRATED US BUM", "BS US HYPE"....

Your becoming exactly what you hate and talk **** about. All the talk of a US bias and your fast becoming one of the other end of the spectrum....the EPIDOMY of ANTI-US BIAS.

Its getting old and tiresome. And this is coming from one of your biggest supporters on here.

Give it a ****in rest dude.

 

CHJ has a cemented opinion that Dawson is currently one of the best fighters in the world, a US fighter no less. He's very hard to impress.

 

Wow...amazing.

It took him beating Adamek (a non US fighter) to prove it tho.

Am, you know CHJ is normally my boy. He is hilarious, and knows his **** (most of the time). But he is getting wwwwwwaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too out of hand with this US/ANTI US ****.

 

It's just because of the current situation mate. My prediction came true and was on target, except for the 2nd round, that was a shocker and nobody gave me an ounce of credit for putting a ton of things on the line and VOCALLY taking one side cemented and never once letting up on it, instead, several have even tried to 'pick' at my pre-fight analysis as a whole and act like Pavlik just got lucky and therefore I just got lucky. The point of this is simple, this is the kind of credit non-americans get for brilliant performances at times and then an American fighter wins a close as hell decision against a similiar opponent and is heralded.

Pavlik is being heavily overrated now, but he does put the 'current' state of Wright and Hopkins into perspective, because he himself is just 'good', not what I'd call 'elite' by any means. The MW division is shallow, nothing like the SMW division and most people are NOW agreeing.

But this is **** that CHJ and myself have spun for a long time, instead of merely accepting that they were all wrong, they still come up with an exusive/apologising mentality.

I am not even going to rub anything in hard, this was an easy fight to predict, the only surprise was that Pavlik's chin is now on the suspect list, as Taylor is not much of a puncher and this was universally considered pre-fight. But we have stated that Pavlik and Taylor are two steps below the precision of Calzaghe and Kessler and have stood by it, the current state of Hopkins, which doesn't reflect on his prime ability, is also at this level, it's very evident.

And Dawson didn't just 'beat' Adamek, he DOMINATED Adamek, this is where he showed immense class and poise, something Taylor has never shown and why Dawson deserved to be acclaimed more after the Adamek performance. Adamek is a better ****ing fighter overall in comparison to Kelly Pavlik, that's for damn sure.