Who were the best fighters Hopkins beat at MIDDLEWEIGHT ?

Not after seeing the Sturm fight.

 

I'm basing it mainly on the fact Oscar beat him and the fact he was a more diverse skill set that had matured at 154. You could argue Tito lost because of weight drain against ODLH, but he looked clueless. I thought Oscar had more control in beating Vargas and the Mosley performance a good 1. Obviously Trinidad has the better and is the bigger monster of a man. Stylistically Oscar's speedy boxer mover style should cause BHOPs more problems and did

This is more a retrospective analysis as Trinidad was P4P no1 for many at the time (wrongly)

 

1.Trinidad
2.Keith Holmes
3.William Joppy
4.Glen Johnson (the version that fought B-Hop, this is not a p4p list)
5.Antwun Echols/Oscar De La Hoya

I actually scored the second Taylor fight for B-Hop, but if we are talking official wins then this would be my top 5.

 

Yes he was definitely firmly established at 160 pounds, regardless of how weak or strong one may deem the era to be, he had won fights against middleweight fighters who were ranked, therefore he was established at the weight.

 

The De La Hoya win is not even a good win at all imo, all that Oscar ever did at the weight was get beat by Felix Sturm, let's have it right.

 

He only had one fight against Joppy before facing Hopkins.

 

Sorry, i should have said he had won a fight against a ranked middleweight then, the point still stands.

 

Beating the best champ from the division below historically usually means allot:

Sanchez-Gomez
Pryor-Arguello
Monzon-Napoles

 

Point taken, but if you're trying to make sure i'm consistent then don't worry i am. I don't use the 'at the time' theory though, for instance I rate the Hearns win for Hagler, not because Hearns was a great 154 man, but because Hearns would go on to prove he could do it at 160, therefore that is a good win over a middleweight. Oscar never did anything of note at 160 and therefore i don't rate that win for Hopkins.

 

DLH looked like crap against Sturm. He was in horrible shape and was not strong enough for argueably the lightest hitting middle since Svenn Ottke. He should have known he had no business in with Hopkins after that fight.

DLH looked pretty good in the opening rounds against B-Hop, but he packed it in late in uncharacteristic fashion.

 

I see what you mean, I don't rate Napoles too highly for Monzon because of the size disparity. However a MW fighting a JMW, isn't as much in it. I think Delahoya could also have done reasonably well as a MW contender if he needed to. Thats all just my opinion though, he certainly isn't proven at that weight limit, I just think he was good

It should be noted the DLH fight was also at a catchweight

 

Yeah all good, i actually need to stop the technically 'correct' ****, it gets too strict, if you're beating good fighters you're beating good fighters i suppose

 

I haven't seen the full version of the Sturm fight only the highlights, makes me feel left out of the discussion, but I'm not forcing myself to watch it either

1 thing I remember though, Oscar wasnt in shape for Sturm, he was for Hopkins

Otke wasn't a MW Lh32

 

I know that was a bit of a joke he was a super middle but he hit like a lightweight.

 

My bad if he was mentioned, but the first Robert Allen fight was a tough one for Hopkins. At the time I thought Nard was a bit lucky for getting the no-contest. The first Echols fight was free on Fox Sports West here in L.A. Worth mentioning since this was, in my estimation, the fight that got him more recognition with the casual fight fan.