Thoughts on this top 5 @ 160

Post Mercado Hopkins went a decade undefeated. His best is obviously somewhere inside of that. It's certainly not near the Taylor fights where his workrate had been diminishing for some time. It's also not at the time he beat Mercado. From around 97 to 2001 would be a reasonable guess.

Jones as a champion middleweight lasted 12 months and 2 fights. Now i rate him enormously H2H there in spite of this but rating Jones as high as you do while bagging Hopkins as unproven at 160 resume is disingenuous.

 

Possibly, but 2 fights isn't much. Hopkins is certainly immensely more accomplished there.

 

Who was bringing up Hopkins - Jones II? One can absolutely say Hopkins was far from peak when Jones beat him simply because it is true. Whether Hopkins ever beats him at 160 is an entirely different topic.

Jones can't get credit for beating the Hopkins that ruled for a decade because he didn't. Stan Ward didn't defeat the best of Mike Weaver either.

 

Could’ve fooled me. The Toney win was at a different weight, therefore it does not factor into his resume at 160. Who is Tate in the grand scheme? His claim to fame is lasting the distance with Julian Jackson. What else?

You don’t even believe that yourself, so no need to refute it.

Now you’ve lost me.

 

I’ve never seen anyone rate Duran top 5 at Welter on any forum in my life.

 

It's been shown in here dozens of time why age isn't the be all and end all with fighters peaks. It's often pulled out to suit an agenda.

Jones was a guy who relied on his immense god given talent and peaked far earlier than a Hopkins type who was not as talented and was a vastly more technical fighter who took a lot longer to develop. He was 4 years older than Roy yet turned pro around the same time.

 

I haven't stated Hopkins would beat that version of Jones. If you think Jones beat the very best of Hopkins and therefore it is some sort of amazing win then best of luck to you.

 

I tend not to include Jones in middleweight discussions as he’d not be a middleweight in previous eras so the mythical matches stuff is worthless. Well mythicals are worthless anyways.

Robinson, Greb, Monzon, Hagler must surely be in the top 5. The other could come down to any of a few guys.

 

Better? Fair enough. Greater? No chance.

 

I don’t think Hopkins beats Jones myself.

Trinidad, obviously. He was vying for pound for pound number one with Jones Jr., was a 3 division champ, and was the favorite.

“Oh, b-b-but he used to fight at Welterweight!”

So what? He just destroyed another Middleweight champion before Hopkins. He showed no ill effects at the weight in doing so.

Nobody has even argued that Hopkins would’ve beaten Jones at any point in their respective primes.