Tommy Loughran vs. Bernard Hopkins

Hopkins UD
Hopkins is a defensive master, in my opinion, H2H Hopkins is the better fighter here

 

Hm, for some of his best fights Tommy weighed in just above the mw limit at 163-168 pounds so I guess with today´s weigh-in rules he could make the mw limit while beeing at his best. This would be an awesome fight. The decider would be if Hopkins would be able to take away Loughran´s awesome jab. If he can, he wins. If he can´t he loses. Hopkins was great at taking away the jab (or advantages of his opponents overall) but Tommy was better than anybody Hopkins fought. Good question. I don´t know. Great fight.

 

I'm not really sure exactly how well Hopkins' rhythm breaking tactics would work on Tommy. A lot of fighters from Loughran's day had pretty good clinch and inside game of their own even if they were outside operators. I'd imagine Tommy would have a pretty good chance if he managed to(purportedly) newspaper decision Greb at 19 years of age, and his resume is much more convincing imo.

Very competitive at MW. I think this would be a pretty ugly fight to watch though, lots of clinching and questionable tactics.

 

Those weren´t catchweights, they were lhw fights, Loughran just weighed in that low.

 

as good as hopkins was i cant him dealing with the jab of loughran

ud to the old-timer

 

I think Loughran was a pretty superb boxer overall by any accounts as far as the subtleties. Here's a validation from the father of modern pugilism himself:

 

Well i don't think Hopkins is in a bad predicament from a stylistic perpective, i think the only way you could really go for Loughran is if you think he is just too good. I'm not of that opinion personally, Loughran is one of the highest ranking 175 men in history for me though so it might be the case

 

WOW! This fight has to take place at the Blue Horizon, best place to watch a fight! This would be a great tactical match-up, but I would lean towards a Loughran decison quite possibly SD/MD type of verdict. I don't think it is out of the question for someone to pick either guy here, and in a series I think each guy would walk away with a win/loss at some point. But in this one time affair, I like Loughran

 

I would give the edge to loughran in both foot and hand speed, but Hopkins defense, counter punching and timing will negate or equal out most of that. Even though Loughran as a LHW might be thought of as the bigger man, as Bodhi pointed out that really won't be the case as Hop's would have 2 inches of height and reach in his favor, and Hop's was a master kinda like Monzon in maximizing those assessts to his advatage. I would not be surprised to see Hop's win this and wouldn't question anyone picking him...for me this is a pick em' fight...I just fall off the fence on Loughran's side.