Post Hagler middleweight division underrated?

Ray wanted nothing of the hungry hotshots gunning for him (Frank Tate, Lindell Holmes, Herol Graham or Michael Olajide, or McCallum coming up). Then there was Benn and Nunn by '88, and Barkley. Wise old fox was Sugarman.

 

I'll give you credit for being one of the most interesting posters on here.

 

Great post, George

 

Imo post Hagler pre Hopkins mw era might be the best or second best we've ever seen

 

In the July 1992 Ring magazine, the top 10 middleweights were:
1. Julian Jackson
2. James Toney
3. Mike McCallum
4. Sumbu Kalambay
5. Roy Jones
6. Steve Collins
7. Reggie Johnson
8. Bernard Hopkins
9. Lamar Parks
10. Gerald McClellan

That's a pretty ferocious lineup.

At Super Middle, not as great but still pretty rock solid. The best super middles were the middles who had just moved up (Nunn, Eubank, Benn and Barkley).

1. Victor Corboba
2. Michael Nunn
3. Chris Eubank
4. Iran Barkley
5. Mauro Galvano
6. Nigel Benn
7. Tim Littles
8. Darrin Van Horn
9. Tony Thornton
10. Merqui Sosa

It was a loaded era.

 

What's interesting is Hopkins was in that loaded era, and basically didn't fight any of the big names but Jones, who he lost to at middle.

I think the reason that era doesn't stand out as much is they didn't all fight each other at middleweight. And, if some of them did fight, in most cases, they tended to meet up at different weights other than middle.

 

Credit to Julian Jackson for facing the most awkward (Graham) and the most feared (McClellan), as well as having an unbeaten McCallum out on his feet in the first round and what he did to Norris (and Drayton), proved he could box against mandatory Thomas Tate and regained the title in 95!

 

I'm not surprised the bigger names didn't want anything to do with Hopkins. He was not a draw and probably gave Roy Jones his most competitive fight at mw

 

Don King did try to unify all the WBC, WBA and WBO belts from 154 to 168, but it never worked out.

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I think the reason Hopkins didn't get a lot of fights with the names at the time was his promoter was Butch Lewis. And he only fought Jones because the IBF mandated they fight when Toney vacated.

Lewis was difficult to work with. Most of those other fighters were boxing on HBO, USA, ESPN and on network television, and Hopkins, when he was coming up, mainly fought on BET (Black Entertainment Television) because Lewis was friends with the owner. Stuff like that didn't help.

 

The plan was for Eubank to beat Benn and Nunn and then face Norris at the brand new MGM. King saw Eubank as his golden goose but Chris didn't play ball after the drawn verdict (Benn) meant he wasn't tied.