I don't want to take anything away from Hopkins and if people just want to slag Hopkins, Pavlik, me or other posters of that may post on this thread then can you please go some where else... ...but, many people who try to discredit Hopkins performances say that a lot of his marquee wins were against fighter's moving up in weight (DLH, Trinidad, Wright). Now although Pavlik is a middleweight and Hopkins was a middle weight throughout the majority of his career Hopkins has had a few fights above 170 and this was Pavliks first fight above 166 to the best of my knowledge. So, despite the things going agasint Bernard (being 43, coming of a defeat and fighting a 26 year old, undefeated, fit, power puncher) will this weight issue have a bearing on the legacy of this fight? I personally think Hopkins wins no matter what weight this fight is at but, although some will say it, will there be a large significant number of people who label this fight as Hopkins picking on another smaller man? (i actually think "picking on a smaller man" in this case is a poor use of phrase as Kelly is a naturally big middleweight but since this is the usual chosen terminology in these situations i am going to use it. I would actually call it taking Kelly out of his comfort zone weight wise).
People always want to discredit Hopkins after the fact. The fact remains that Trinidad, Tarver, and Pavlik were all significant favorites against Hopkins. No one thought the weight would be an issue for Trinidad and Pavlik before the fight. And when you get dominated as thoroughly as Trinidad and Pavlik did, the weight excuse looks very flimsy. Neither one of those guys were overpowered. Hopkins outsmarted them both; left them confused and without answers. Hopkins went up 2 weight classes to beat Tarver, and people still want to discredit that win.
Pavlik had a lot of fights over 160. Once he weighed in at 169, just as past Friday. Since Kelly is the bigger man and Hopkins had more fights at 160 than Pavlik, I say it won't affect the legacy since most of the experts expected Pavlik to be the bigger man in the first place. He wasn't and I warned everyone that the new weight would be a factor - but it was Hopkins movement that solved the Pavlik puzzle, not his physical size. So I don't think that can take away anything from the victory. Team Pavlik was already planning a future at 168, and 170 is very close to the limit.
