Rank these guys in terms of ability... HOPKINS, DLH, LOPEZ, MARQUEZ ?

Let me pose a question to you Scientist.....I view DLH's domination at lightweight having to do more with his speed, power and size, more so than his skill........

.......now you said that Lopez did''nt have speed
I thought his speed was exellent, but certainly not the type of blinding speed that DLH possesed for a lightweight.......

Now in your opinion Lopez dominated what your opinion was subpar competition, no?
In you opinion was it his punching power, his speed or his overall skill level that caused the domination???

My belief is that Lopez' overall boxing skill level was so far and beyond anyone in his divsion that it was the reason that he dominated.

I just dont see DLH dominating at 135 lbs if you took away his speed and put it on par with say at Lopez level.
DLH would likely still win, but imo he would not dominate at the level that he did.

My point being is that Lopez was eons above the boxing skill level of DLH.

Look what happened to DLH against Pacquiao.......the speed of Pacquiao is what caused that. I know that version of DLH is far away from his prime........but where in the heck was your so called skill that DLH had that he did'nt bring out against Pacquiao and at least prevent an embarassment like that???

A fighter with exellent skills is not very likely to get embarassed like that, even far from his prime.

Where was the skill that DLH could'nt use his height and reach to time and at least make Pacquiao respect him.

You see where I"m getting at?????
Without a speed advantage, DLH was a completely lost fighter.........now I know there are other variables that contributed to his God awful performance, but certainly DLH's skill level or lack of imo contributed to his dreadful performance against Pacquiao.......

DLH's skill level imo is overrated.......all three of the fighters that I'm ranking DLH behind in this thread all are have more versatile games......all three for example hold there own against almost anyone at any distance that a fight may be fought in......inside, outside and mid-distance fighting.....

DLH it seemed to me needed room to operate, while the other three were more complete and versatile enough to be dangerous at any distance, and all three had better right hands than DLH.......I"d classify DLH's right hand as rather weak.
The others are just more versatile.

 

DLH dominated lightweight due to a combination of his skills, speed, power and weight advantages.

Take away his speed and weight advantages and he probably still wins easy because his skill and power was above that of his foes.

You can say weight advantage has nothing to do with ability, and I agree with that, but speed IS part of a fighters' ability, and what we are measuring in this thread is a fighters ABILITY not merely their SKILLS.

I have no issue with you saying that Lopez had the better skills. I think their skill is actually quite comparable if you factor in that DLH had a better jab and if you also think he had better defence you could possibly edge it for DLH. But when you factor in DLH's speed and combination throwing ability I cannot stand by and let you say he had more ability than DLH. I don't think he did.

C'mon Vlade, you can't use that fight to gauge anything. DLH was completely finished there. His reaction times, his energy levels, his balance etc. He was completely done. You can't draw upon the last fight in a man's career and mount a case for something when he has proven fight after fight that he can hold his own with the best fighters in the sport for near on a decade, doing so often in terms of skill, not simply in terms of weight advantages or even speed. I thought for instance that DLH looked very slow against Floyd Mayweather, but defensively, he was still very sharp. Floyd struggled to penetrate his guard for a good 7 or 8 rounds with anything meaningful, and only started to seize some control of the fight when DLH gassed.

DLH's right hand was definitely a weakness, and really if we are talking purely skill you can mount an argument that the other three are better. But as I said before, skill is not the definition of ability for me. For that, things like speed are included, and DLH had better speed and combos than all the other fighters there. A better jab too imo, and his defense is better than Marquez's and at the very least as good as Lopez's, I'd be inclined to argue better, though not with much credible evidence, becuase as I said, Lopez never faced the kind of opposition DLH did to test his defense.

 

It's not just Pac that he has taken shots against though. Norwood landed plenty and dropped him, an old Barrera OUTlanded him and dropped him as well and Joel Casamayor, who looked old and ready to go before he even faced Marquez still gave him an even fight for 10+ rounds, landing plenty of hard flush shots on him.

I just don't see the argument that he is a better or even as good a defensive fighter as DLH.

Come on Mac, it was nearly taken away from him by a just about done Methuselah Casamayor. Marquez has a warrior heart and is finding ways to win now that his speed and relfexes are eroding, but he is NOT hard to beat right now imo. A prime Jose Luis Castillo would do it, a prime Corrales probably as well. I don't need to venture to better lightweights. Diaz has so far proven that he has a great workrate and not much else. I don't class a win against him as a great achievement, but it is an excellent one given that Marquez is the smaller man and is starting to erode. Spoke a lot more about his heart than his skills imo.

 

I agree with all of this. I consider Marquez the more skilled fighter myself, in terms of aesthetics Lopez is right up there, and I ASSUME he could've implemented that skillset against harder challenges or more skilled fighters if he had to.

I consider Hopkins the best; super durable, defensively sound, hurtful puncher, great combos, decent handspped, great tactician. I have no problems with any of the others being picked over him, but for me it's Hop, mainly because he has the best results against the best opposition (IN MY OPINION)

 

It looks like my opinion will be going against the grain but here goes;

1 Lopez
2 Marquez
3 Hopkins
4 de la Hoya

Hopkins, Lopez and JMM all had/are having success when they're older and past their prime which is obviously a testament to their skill level.

Ricardo is the most perfect, textbook fighter I've ever seen and despite the lack of names on his resume, I don't think it's obscene to rank him above Hopkins.

The way JMM has been able to change his style and have success against bigger, stronger and younger fighters as well as his success at 126 and his great ability to make adjustments mid-fight gives him a slight edge over Hopkins in my opinion too.

Hopkins was a great fighter, especially in his '99-'01 prime but post-Tito I thought he employed far too much clinching to get by, which I don't really consider to be a skill.

 

99% of the time I think your posts are superb, but this is one opinion I cannot share mate. I don't really have a strong opinion regarding this thread, hence why I have not participated much, as to me Lopez, Marquez and Oscar are all great fighters who are roughly on par in terms of ability and can be argued in any order really. But I think Hopkins has to be a clear number 1. I think he was clearly a better fighter than Oscar was. Whether you take Oscar's peak to be his 135-140 days (as I do - performances against Genaro Hernandez, Rafael Ruelas and MA Gonzalez especially) or whether you take it to be his big fight days at 147-154, I just don't think he was as great as prime B-Hop. I struggle to explain myself any better than this, it's just a strong conviction. If you put Oscar in with the best lw's and lww's ever or the best ww's and lmw's ever, I believe he would fare considerably worse than Hopkins would against the cream of the mw division.

 

Thanks - if JMM manages to beat Floyd, he might jump to #1 on that list. If he followed up with an official victory over Pac, I would probably rate him as the best Mexican fighter ever.

It feels a little strange having Hopkins at #3 on the list considering his unique career and his undeniably great (an over-used word I don't throw around lightly) skills. I just rate Lopez and Marquez very highly.

I know Oscar doesn't get much love these days but I thought he was excellent, particularly in his 135-140 days. I don't think you could justify having him above the other guys in this discussion.

 

Just because Norwood and John aren't big names doesn't mean they don't have excellent boxing skills because they do. DLH only fought big names and never faced the up and coming names in any of the divisions he campaigned in. No Forrest (RIP), Winky, Margarito, Tyszu etc etc. Its not necessarily a critiscism but he's not going to lose to the up and coming names if he never faces any

Hopkins, Quartey, Mayweather and Whitaker had the best boxing skills DLH encountered and they all found it easy to land on his basic defense and made him miss allot. He lost imo against all even though Hopkins/Whitaker were old, Quartey was rusty and Mayweather was 4divisions above his prime.

DLH had a ton of physical ability but in terms of defensive and boxing smarts he's never on the level of a Hopkins

 

Cool, some agreement :good

Pretty much everyone had that fight close to even, Casamayor was well on the way to winning the 11h round, and got caught. I'd say Marquez was close to losing that fight.

Corrales was done after the first Castillo fight though for all intents and purposes and Casamayor looked like shite against Katsidis. Casamayor robbed Santa as well so those three wins, whilst wins on paper, are all the evidence we need for where Casamayor was heading.

A very important one for sure.

Neihter really. But at lightweight, Castillo is bigger and stronger and punches harder than Marquez and for those reasons more than anything else I think Castillo would beat him.

Marquez was a very good featherweight and super feather but at lightweight (and with the years ticking by) he looks vulnerable against some average lightweights, so it's no stretch to see him losing to Castillo or even a Corrales really.

Which translates to the following: the best two fighters he has beaten are a shot Freitas and Katsidis the great

I agree, especially if you are prone to being hit a lot.