Why Hopkins would beat Monzon at MW

1. If you're picking Hopkins by an SD, you're not particularly confident in your own argument.

2. I can see why you wouldn't be, as you couldn't possibly believe Monzon's greatest asset was his height and reach, considering his through-the-****ing-roof ring IQ.

3. This comment is not an argument against Hopkins, because I have no strong feeling on any outcome, save the 99.999% likelihood that it goes the distance, whoever wins.

 

Monzon wins this.Period. I'd rather see Hopkins v Briscoe for the Pennsylvanian title.

 

I would pick Hopkins as well. I think Monzon is vastly overrated. Ive been studying his opponents lately, particularly during his reign, and I think a lot of people have some seriously rose colored glasses when it comes to Monzon.

Even back when Hopkins broke the record for title defenses you had a bunch of yahoos complaining that Hopkins broke the record because so many of his defenses were not for a unified title. Those same people must have forgotten that Monzon didnt have the record for unified title defenses either. That was Hagler. Monzon had several defenses after he had been stripped for failing to defend against his number 1 contender and it took him 2 and a half years to fight that guy. When Hopkins was defending his fractured title it wasnt because he was running from anyone as Monzon had done it was because he was being run from by Joppy and Holmes.

Dont even get me started on all of those padded defenses such as Bouttier, Tonna, Moyer, and Boggs. Even Mundine and Licata who looked DECENT at the time werent that good. Jose Napoles had never even fought a world class MW (come to think of it did he even fight a single middleweight other than Monzon???). When an aging and disinterested Benvenuti, an aging Griffith (who was naturally smaller anyway), and Bennie Briscoe are the best you can do your resume isnt one that should have people dismissing Hopkins chances as a matter of course.

 

This has been a revelation.

I don't think i've ever seen a matchup between these two laid out in such a manner, never before have incisive points like these been brought up in the other 50 ten page long threads.

With your clarity of vision perhaps we can finally put to rest such chestnuts as Whitaker vs Duran, ali vs Tyson, kalule vs Ketchel etc

 

Licata was mediocre, easily the worst fighter Monzon defended against.

 

Yeah, can't agree with you there, Klompton. Licata ain't the guy to point out among Monzon's better scalps at all. Most of the guys you mentioned were good to very good fighters. Also, among those you listed as his best, was there any reason for leaving out the same guy you hold against him for putting the fight off a couple of years? He did beat him twice after all, so it's hardly a detriment to his legacy.

 

I disagree. Licata was poor but Bouttier was garbage as was Boggs, Tonna, (when it comes to Bouttier and Tonna I have most of their fights, and even several amateur fights of Tonna where he was a beast but never really developed beyond that point) and Moyer (at that point in his career). In my opinion even Mundine was worse than Licata but I know some here will lump him as being better simply because of his athleticism. He was a great athlete and even had good skills but he wasnt a fighter and his heart was the size of a mustard seed and the consistency of a wet fart. Frankly you can rank all those guys together. It was an oversight on my part not mentioning Valdez born partly out of me focusing on Monzon's defenses of the unified title. He did beat Valdez and thats a good scalp to have on your record but lets not forget that after ducking him for two years he only agreed to fight him immediately after Valdez was injured very badly in a car accident and had his right hand (his best punch) injured so badly that it was feared he would never fight again and then had to fight a couple of days after finding out his brother had been murdered and basically being pressured into not cancelling. He fought a very poor fight that night.

Dont get me wrong. I dont think Monzon was bogus. He was obviously very good, and with his size advantages he was tough to beat. I just dont see him, as some people say, as being a shoe in to beat Robinson, Hopkins, Hagler, Greb etc etc. I think his skills and punching power are overrated and his defense is underrated (awkward but underrated).

It just seems that the last 15 years or so there has been a big push to say Monzon was practially unbeatable and he wasnt. Argentina had a nice habit of protecting their fighters with favorable decisions, quick stoppages, etc. and Monzon was reportedly the beneficiary of some of these. Then he gets the title and in my opinion has a pretty weak run of it (I mean lets be honest, the only guy he fought as champ that you could honestly think had a chance to beat him was Valdez and maybe Briscoe). The things that made him so difficult to beat in his era and against the guys he was fighting arent going to be an issue with Hopkins. So yeah, I think he was overrated and I could easily see Hopkins beating him and yes, of his non championship calibre defenses Licata was at least as good as Bouttier, Tonna, that version of Moyer, etc. That doesnt mean Licata was anything special, he wasnt, but neither were those guys.

 

Monzon's resume is clearly better than Hopkins MIDDLEWEIGHT resume: Robert Allen x2, Segundo Mercado x2 including a draw, 2 losses to Taylor, Howard Eastman, Bill Joppy, Antwun Echols x2, Howard Eastman, Keith Holmes. Simon Brown shot and 2 weights above best. I'll stop there, but there are about 7-8 other weak names. Griffith, Napoles, Valdez, Benvenuti, and Briscoe beat every single one of these guys. Tito Trinidad is a good win, but Tito never did much at 160 unless you think much of Joppy (I don't). You think Hopkins beats Monzon, that's reasonable, but the Middleweight resumes aren't that close.

 

Glen Johnson was a great performance and good win. But still, I think all those Monzon opponents mentioned beat him.

 

The thing i like about Monzon's title opposition incidentally, has little to do with perceived talent levels.That's in the eye of the beholder after all.

it's that almost all of them were well-schooled fighters capable of fighting a few different ways and who would try different things fight to fight.Hagler was about half and half between that and one-track fighters trading on a couple of notable attributes(though not necessarily inherently worse for it than the rounded more technical types)and Hopkins is almost entirely the latter at middleweight, especially for the ones i'd consider to have better talent.

You can pick holes in every middleweight of the post 60s opposition if you really want to, but i find it difficult to see why anyone wouldn't recognise there was a clear dropoff in talent circa 95.

 

Some of those names you mention like Griffith, and Benvenuti would have been good had they been in their prime but both were far past their best. Griffith was looking downright Holyfieldesque at that point (this Holyfield, not the 90s Holy) and Benevenuti was a lot more interested in flying around the world and partying than fighting. He was struggling with guys who wouldnt even be called club fighters in that era. Napoles, as I said before was not a MW, hell the guy only fought at WW because LWs were too scared to face him. I may be mistaken but MOnzon might be the ONLY MW fight he ever had. How is that a great MW win? Valdez was a good win even if you dont take into account outside of the ring incidents and Briscoe was too but even Briscoe was not a world beater was he? I love Briscoe, he is one of my favorite fighters but lets not pretend he didnt have his limitations.

 

The Glen Johnson performance was an impressive one for Hopkins, but it was not a notable win at the time by any means, nor should it have been even given the benefit of hindsight, as Johnson wouldn't really start to disntinguish himself as world class until years later.

Monzon may not've faced the the strongest caliber of Middleweight during his reign, but I'm comfortable in saying that he faced clearly superior opposition than Hopkins and just as good as Hagler, while maintaining the dominance of either. I'd narrowly favor him over both based not on opposition (after all, what sort of way is that to determine the winner of a hypothetical matchup?) but based on what I see on film in regards to the clash of styles.