Who would you rank the highest out of these 3 ?

I rank Jones highest because he clearly beat both guys without dispute in the H2H meetings in their primes & speaking of primes, all 3 were in their primes in the same time frame & RJJ was the p4p no1.... the Roy Jones from Tarver onwards is like a different guy altogether.
Hopkins & Toney have Jones on longevity (which is important) but Jones was the superior athlete & prime fighter as proven in the H2Hs.

 

Also, the man's general stance facilitates his reidiculously good defence. What people don't realise when discussing great defences is thatt he likes of Locche etc, they look amazing defensively because they dodge so many punches emphatically. Bernard Hopkins hardly ever lets opponents in position to land clean, they're hardly in position to set up. And his chin is almost never ever exposed, even when he's on supreme offence. One of the greatest ring generals of all time, from a purely technical persepctive that is. You can name some early poor showings in that regard and that's it, just Mercado really.

 

there really is not much between hagler and hopkins for technical skills

 

Only in the (completely superficial) sense that he moves more. From a technical perspective (not to mention economy) Hopkins is certainly superior, and was never open to being bundled or mugged by lesser labourers like Antuofermo, keeping himself poised and achieving punching position with short steps and balance at all times.

Not particularly. Hagler could be stiff-legged at times and threw much more arm-punches than Hopkins.

Not a technical consideration (but false nonetheless).

I see we've descended into complete bull**** now. One of Hagler's biggest issues was his ability to allow the opponent to dictate the pace. When he faced a runner in Leonard, he was lumbering forward ineffectively; when a podgy and sluggish career Lightweight decided to box him carefully, he completely failed to push the pace and bring into play his physical advantages; when he was attacked by a swarmer he was caught with his trousers down defensively and couldn't control the distance. Hopkins on the other hand is an expert at dictating the pace, turning down the heat with clinching and range control (hence why he's so difficult to beat convincingly) or turning it up by engaging inside when he decides to. NOBODY fights their own fight against Hopkins.

Both true but irrelevant to a technical discussion.

Simply laughable.

Nobody's as smart as B-Hop.

 

Very well said.

 

I see I don´t need to answer Pachilles post myself, my minions already did and they did very well :good

I want to add that Hopkins is among the very best balanced fighters ever, he is like never off-balance. His judge of distance is nearly as good. Two great assets for longvity IMO.

 

Likewise, Hagler's defensive ability is even less recognised. How many of those rapid fire punches Hearns threw landed cleanly? Not many. And the ones that did lost alot sting due to his head movement. In his prime he moved so efficiently the opponent would often be off or lose balance and more importantly, this opening would be capitalised on. He has such a high stoppage rate not because of brutal KO power, but due to systematic dismantling and outclassing of opponents

 

Bottom line is this. His physical advantages saw this future LHW gain his two greatest wins against a two prime WW's, not his technical skill. Same case with his next great win Winky Wright. Calzaghe and Taylor the only two quality opponents he faced that matched him in size defeated him. Pavlik and Tarver are clearly several classes below these other names mentioned.

This technical God-mode you refer to on a world class level is utter bull****. Unless technical ability means to physically overpower a smaller man and hug him to exhaustion

 

:rofl:rofl:rofl

After Duran it´s Hopkins now. You are one big joke.

 

Suck my ass and my balls you worryingly stoic weird ****. I've always claimed that Soapy is overrated and he is. He's a hypejob and a cherrypicker. Much more so than Mayweather, who btw, i consider a superior fighter to Soapy also.

 

"hug him to exhaustion" eh?

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtm5ApQ4mWk[/ame]

 

You really are a simple creature.

Infact no, i know you know what you're doing. But who are you hoping to fool on in this forum??? Simon Brown, a career welterweight, far past his prime here, blown up and should've retired half a decade ago, up against the huge prime MW Hopkins?

 

Do you think a natural MW incarnation of Brown, or Trinidad, DLH etc. would have fared any differently against Hopkins?

 

1. Roy Jones Jr.

2. James Toney

3. Bernard Hopkins

In that order

 

Hopkins is a :
(1) Cheater , first and for most
(2) Safe chooser
(3) Looser whenever fought a live opponent near his size and mass : Mitchell , Jones , Taylor (*2) , Calzaghe .

Against Calzaghe it can be argued that he did not lose (by those who either haven't seen , forgot , or just failed to understand or just missed the faking of being hit by low blows) , but then again , did he or did he not fake low blows just to take a break from the fight when he needed it ? otherwise Calzaghe would have won clearly .