Why did Bernard Hopkins duck James Toney for nearly 20 years?

Toney talked a lot and not all of it made any sense.

Toney last fought at middleweight on Aug 1992 against McCallum, Hopkins at the time was just 19-1 having just fought a guy who was 24-23-1, I really doubt Hopkins was ever in a position to challenge Toney at the time he was champion at middleweight.

By the time Hopkins won the middleweight title in May 95 and then could have been seen as a viable opponent for Toney, Toney had lost to Jones Jr and Griffin and was 2 divisions above Hopkins at light heavyweight. So why would anyone want a lightly regarded Hopkins to jump 2 divisions to face a guy who had back to back losses and then spent the next several years lost at light heavyweight.

They both did eventually agree to fight in August 2003. Hopkins agreed to jump up 3 divisions and fight Toney at cruiser after Toney had finally beaten a decent opponent his first in several years. All contracts were signed and agreed to purses had been guaranteed. Hopkins was to receive $3.5 million and Toney $2.5 million.

But Don King tried to reduce both their purses by $1 million saying he could not afford it. Toney agreed as it would have still been more than he had earned to beat the bigger Jirov and more than he could get anywhere else. Hopkins declined, he was not going to jump up 3 divisions to face Toney for $2.5 million when he had just earned $2.5 million to beat Carl Daniels. Hopkins also likely believed King was trying to pull a fast one and take the extra money for himself.

 

When broken down & [it like that, it pretty much answers the question.

that's that then,

 

Dang... thanks for copying and pasting this!!! Very imformative..:good

 

Don King cost us the Roy Jones vs Hopkins 2 fight when both where still prime as well. Roy agreed to do 50/50 but according to Jones, King wanted 20/25% off the top of Roys money and the same from Hopkins. Smh

 

They probably couldn't agree on terms since it's very difficult to understand what Toney says.

Bhop: You wanna fight me?
Jton: Rama hama rama hama ham ham momo foko rama ram
Bhop: ??

 

:rofl

 

:hey

Pic I saw of James Toney in another forum!!

http://s15.postimg.org/ocpiqn78r/Storm_Chasers_All_You_Can_Eat_Special_Stormy_Turd8.jpg

WTF?

Hopkins was afraid Toney would eat him!!

Like a Zombie Burger!!

:burger

 

I always wondered how it would have turned out had they ended up fighting in 2003. Moving up 30 lbs in weight to face someone as skilled and experienced as Toney is obviously a tough task.

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Yes it really would have been an intriguing match up between 2 of the best defensive fighters of their generation.

Hopkins was able to take apart Wright's tight defensive style but Toney would have been on another level and a completely different proposition. Also the extra weight would have been an extra obstacle which makes the outcome of this fight even harder to judge.

Could Toney deal with Hopkins constant movement and sneaky right hand, a punch he usually slipped with ease but Hopkins' right was very hard to read and see coming. How would Toney deal with Hopkins dirty tactics on the inside?

Hopkins struggled when fighters beat him to the punch, but would a cruiserweight Toney be quick enough to do that and that's if he even adopts this tactic. Toney preferred to counter himself would that favour or hinder Hopkins?

 

Why did Hopkins start at his natural weight of light heavyweight and then move down to fight tiny (compared to him) middleweights for ten years? Bit of a ***** if you ask me. Roy Jones and James Toney briefly cruised through the middleweight division on their way to heavyweight and cruiserweight. Hopkins had one challenging fight before he was 40 and lost it. If you think he was big enough to fight at light heavy or super middle his whole career and was just weight cutting to fight smaller men, then his post 40 career isn't that impressive either. It's only impressive if you don't know that he started at light heavyweight and then moved down two divisions before he eventually moved back to his natural weight.

 

Just because a fighter has one fight early on in his career when he was out of shape doesn't make that his natural weight. For example Calzaghe prior to winning a title against Eubank mostly fought above super middle as a light heavy and even fought a cruiserweight, does that mean Calzaghe was always a light heavy who drained himself to super middle, of course not.

If Hopkins was a natural light heavy as you would suggest then he was massively weight drained for most of his middleweight fights meaning he was at a disadvantage. He was usually out weighted in the ring. Tito out weighted him, Taylor out weighted him, pretty much everyone out weighted him.

Even as a light heavy he was smallish, he weighted only 179.5 lbs vs Kovalev, only 180lbs against Pavlik and 182lbs against Tarver.

 

Some guys can cut weight and not be "weight drained." The human body has a lot of flexibility. A full grown male might fluctuate twenty five pounds in either direction and be healthy. However, the norm for a middleweight is 5'10" and Hopkins is 6'1" tall which is light heavyweight to cruiserweight territory. Hopkins had several inches of reach and height advantage his whole career. He has a reach and height advantage in most of his light heavyweight fights too.

A lot of boxers start out lower than their natural weight either because they are young and haven't filled out with muscle yet or because it's easier at that age to cut ten or fifteen pounds of weight for each fight. That's why Toney and Jones Jr were able to move through middleweight on their way to the more natural fit of light heavyweight. They were briefly middleweights in their early twenties. Hopkins starts boxing as a light heavyweight when he's about thirty. He lost his first fight, which convinced him that he didn't have what it took to compete in the light heavyweight division; so he changed his diet until he lost fifteen pounds.

Calzaghe fought exactly where you would expect a 5'11" boxer to fight at, super middleweight. 5'10 is middleweight. 6'0 is light heavyweight.

I don't think that Hopkins was ever at a disadvantage due to being weight drained because I think he probably did things with his diet and exercise to stay ten or fifteen pounds lighter than is natural for a man of his size. Same goes for Thomas Hearns, Sandy Saddler, Bob Foster, Michael Spinks, Ray Robinson, or Alexis Arguello. You probably only have those weight draining problems that make you weak if you only cut weight every couple months for a fight rather than living a lifestyle that keeps you at an abnormally low weight due to jogging, or being a vegan, etc.

That is why Tito Trinidad could outweigh Hopkins on the night he fought him. Both men were playing games with their weight. That's why Maidana outweighed Mayweather despite being a smaller man. One fighter is trying to get as low as he can in weight to be fast and the other is trying to get as high in weight as he can to be strong. It happens all the time, especially when people aren't fighting in their natural weight classes.

Your proof that Hopkins is a small light heavyweight is that he weighs roughly 180 pounds for a fight? The light heavyweight limit is 175 genius.

 

There was a small window for this fight back at mw. Hopkins was Toney's mando but Toney chose to move up to fight Barkley for his first 1M payday, Hopkins would go on to fight Jones for Toney's vacated ibf belt

Never thought the fight would happen in 03. I couldn't see Hopkins jumping up 3 divisions for anyone

 

Yes guys can cut weight and not be drained but if Hopkins was always a natural light heavy as you assume how come his weight never massively increased from weight in to fight weight? Fighters that are known to cut heavily always hydrate back up to much higher weights not just a few lbs like Hopkins did.

Also if Hopkins was a natural light heavy why did he restrict his weight at even this higher weight class and rarely gain much in weight from the weight in to the in ring weight? Surely any naturally bigger fighter when going up to their natural weight should start actually coming in at a heavier weight instead of gaining 4.5lbs like he did for the Kovalev fight.

When you look at all the facts your point of view doesn't add up. You can cling on to the single fact that he was big and overweight for his first fight to support your opinion but you can't ignore all the other facts just because it doesn't suit your point of view.