Thoughts on this top 5 @ 160

It’s an interesting thread.

It all depends on what your personal criteria is.

Everybody knows my stance on Hopkins.

Some people agree, some don’t.

He made 160 and he won there fare and square. He did nothing wrong. He didn’t cheat anybody. And he cleaned it out and had a record number of defences. So I have no objection to him being rated so highly. But I’ll never change my opinion on him. And you know what that is. For me, he made incredible sacrifices in order to rule a weak division against mostly naturally smaller fighters, whilst there were better fighters to target at the weights above.

To some, he’s a legendary fighter. Again, I can’t really object to that. And I admire his discipline and his longevity. But I genuinely see his MW reign as a lack of ambition. I think he hid out there. And he did it because he wanted to be the big fish in the small pond. Fighting at MW was easier than targeting the best SMW’s and LHW’s of the era. That’s just how I see it.

 

I get a chuckle every week or two.

 

Agree... and he Spoiled his way to a lot of those victories.

he does deserve Top recognition, but in Context, and he is Not alone in that, many others should be thought of lower than they are made out to be.

the problem with inaccurate 'achivement' based ratings and hype.

in short it's B.S.

 

The key point that you mentioned was that he made great sacrifices to keep his body on point. This is where he deserves a comparison to Hagler. I don't think he stayed at 160 out of any lack of confidence or fear of the fighters north. Bernard Hopkins didn't have any name recognition. He was a boxer the hard core fan knew about. That Title once he got it was his ticket. He fought Joms for the vacant title. After beating Trinidad he started to have some leverage. He.moved up and dominated Tarver, Also Pavlik who was respected but slipping.
Maybe it's an old way of looking at it but I appreciate it when a fighter stays at a weight and claims it. The Middleweight title one of the most pretigous.
Truthfully not many of the good boxers wanted to fight Hopkins. He was an ugly nite. He's the guy they fought when there was no place else.to go. He is certainly a legendary fighter.

 

Its the performance that people remember. Spectacular, devastating, uncommon God Given gifts , speed etc. Hopkins won ugly to the general public. In football he would be the offense putting together consistent 4 yard runs followed by a 9 yard pass. Move the chains.,effective, doesn't turn the ball over. Very few could stop him.
So many fans who back in 1998 were letting it be known Bernard Hopkins dove out of the ring against Robert Allen, faked his foot injury cause the pain was coming. Rematch Allen got humiliated. It was a weak division but Robert Allen had Bernard tinkling down his britches.

 

Which MW victories do you think he spoiled his way to?

 

The MW division was prestigious. But in my opinion, he was happy to defend his IBF title against whoever was put in front of him until King’s tournament. And after he’d beaten Tito, there was nothing left for him to accomplish. But then instead of moving up, he called out all of the JMW champs to go up and face him. Yet when he fought Joe Calzaghe in 2008, he told Joe and the media that he could have moved up to LHW in 2002 had he have wanted to, but that he didn’t, as he didn’t want to give up his advantages. And he also said that if he could get a guy to a weight that he wasn’t used to, then he’d be happy to do that. So although I respect him, as I do any fighter who puts their health on the line, I never saw him as a legend at MW. By his own admission he could have fought at LHW in 2002, yet he wouldn’t rematch Roy at 168 in the same year.

So: He cleared out the division, swerved the rematch with Roy, called out all of the JMW champs to move up and fight him and then only moved out of the division in 2006, after he’d lost to Taylor twice, which was 5 years after King’s tournament.

Yes, he wasn’t a huge name. But he had the backing of Showtime. And I’m not saying that he feared anyone or had confidence issues etc. But it was obviously easier for him to fight the Allen’s of the world, than what it would have been for him to have moved up to target the best SMW’s and LHW’s of the era. That’s just how I’ve always seen it.

He was happy to fight naturally smaller fighters in a weak division rather than test himself against better opponents at the weights above.

 

The change between Allen 2 and Allen 3 show quite well how Hopkins became a different fighter with ahe, as one would expect.

 

In the end he went up and schooled the nr 1 guy at LHW, though, so I don't really see the significance of this. Definitely not for his MW standing. Would he been a greater MW if he moved up after Tito? Is that what you're getting at? Does his standing at MW suffer because he continued to dominate the division, even in his late 30's?

 

Yeah, fighting Kova at 49 was really a safety first move.

 

There is so significance. I’m just giving my honest opinion. He was a great fighter. A great MW. But I think that he stayed there for as long as he did because it was easier than fighting the best SMW’s and LHW’s of the world.

 

The point is, he’d never have dreamt of taking that kind of fight in his prime.

I’ve given you 2 of his quotes from 2008.

Fighting Kovalev at 49 was crazy. But he did that because of the attention that it garnered. He loved his ‘Alien’ monicker. It was a huge ego boost for him.

 

Roy was the only fight that really made sense, though, before he lost to Tarver. There wasn't much going on in those divisions at the time otherwise.

But I can readily believe he wasn't all that eager to face off with Roy again. Waiting a while to get DLH for more money instead... I can see how that thought appealed to him.

 

The Oscar fight was for huge money and it was a relatively safe fight for him. But that was 3 years after he’d beaten Tito to become the undisputed champion. In my opinion, the fact that he was still at MW in 2004 showed a lack of ambition.