Where Does Bernard Hopkins rank among the greatest fighters ever?

I like Hopkins, he's a great fighter. He's a dick, but good at his job. I do think there are some ridiculous double standards when it comes to him and Calzaghe though.

 

In America, and its not your Century any more pal.:crafty::crafty:

 

Which says a lot

MTF

 

Let me say this, mind: as much as I dislike the pseudu ghetto racist, Hopkins is indeed a great fighter. To fight at his age and to win against young, top tier fighters is just incredible and his win streak at 160 is impressive, regardless of the level of competition.

MTF

 

Your century ended before ours even started.

The funniest and most ironic criticism of Hopkins has to be Irish calling him a racist. ointlaugh:

 

Your President is in Ireland right now. :nono:

 

To me it says the title reign by Calzaghe at super middle and Hopkins at middle are basically a wash in terms of career achievements.

The thing that separates them in my opinion, and it's very subjective, are those accomplishments by Hopkins beyond middleweight.

Naturally the loss to Calzaghe creates a bit of a quandary. But ultimately Hopkins is taking real, difficult challenges in his twilight. Unlike Calzaghe who laughingly ended his career fighting two 40ish fighters, Hopkins has continued to challenge younger, top tier guys. And amazingly, has won most of those fights.

It's not like Hopkins is posting wins against fellow geriatrics. Wins over Tarver, Wright, Pavlik and Pascal were legitimate, top level wins.

 

Whoa shit, you're right, the President is visiting Ireland!!!! Fuck, that changes everything.

 

What age was Tarver when Hopkins fought him? And as for Wright.......:scratcher:ointlaugh:ointlaugh:ointlaugh:

 

:boring:

He knows what the story is. 40 million votes :warning:

 

I dunno if you're aware, but most Americans of Irish descent don't really give a fuck about Ireland, or even know anything about their culture beyond a vague identification with a caricaturish stereotype of "Irish" that they think is cool or amusing.

Also, there are 40 million Americans of Irish descent. That means there are considerably less than 40 million Irish voters.

 

I love chatting with you, its so easy to extract valuable personal information from you by means of the most oblique and indirect methods. :bears:

 

wright, tarver, pavlik, tito, and pascal were all favored to beat hopkins.

 

Wright was, you sure?

Not saying you're wrong but that seems a bit odd.

 

By who??? Maxboxing???

 

Wright was a killer with a big punch. You mad~??:notallthere:

 

He's wrong, Wright wasn't favoured at all.

Tarver probably was though, as were Pavlik and Pascal.

 

I'm surprised and flattered you find any personal information about me aside from credit card/bank account info valuable. But I think that maybe you should get out more.

 

It does, Calzaghe was also a great fighter, one of if not the best SMW's there has been.

 

They were both younger than Hopkins.

But that's not really the point. Tarver was considered the top, or at least top 3, LH's in the world at the time.

And Wright was what, 32, and hadn't been beaten in 10 years or something.

Comparing either guy's condition to that of Roy Jones when he fought Calzaghe is, perhaps, the most ridiculous thing I've read on here.

 

I don't know. I would love to find out though. I personally thought Wright would win especially after how he looked against Taylor. Well, in retrospect that shouldn't have meant much but at the time it did.

 

Really? Where did you read it????

Joe did beat Hop, and Hop has studiously avoided the slicksters since then.

Wright. ::

A former 154lbr with losses to Argie plodders???

 

He drew with Taylor for fucks sake, in a fight where Manny threw an UTTER shit-fit in the corner. Fucking Manny, that guy is dangerous. I'm not sure he is really all that great for Wlad.

 

Yes, Wright sucked. I'm making it all up. :scratcher:

 

Wright was good when he was de-nuding Vargas, and busting up Eurobums and Britbums and his repeated defenestrations of Bronco McKart were the stuff of legend. But the Winkster had been out-wrassled before by the limited Julio Cesar Vasquez, a fight where he visited the canvas 4 times. He has found the strong but limited Harry Simon to be too much for him. He had losses whilst in his comfort zone of 154 and this is beyond dispute. His win over Tito has as much to do with Tito as it does with Wright. Fittingly, his wins over Mosley came after Shane had come off the jizz-jazz and even at that they were close wins.

Winky was not 160 material, never mind 170. He had been out-guffed at 154 and that says a lot about his usefulness beyond that limit.

 

No need to minimize Winky's wins or maximize his loses. He sucked for the majority of his career based on your assessment. We're done here. Move on.

 

I never said he sucked. I said he had been found out at 154, and that should tell you a lot about Winky. A win over Winky at 170 when Winky couldn't even hack it at times at 154...........well.....think about it.

 

How many of the recognized ATG of 175 and 160 does Bernard beat???

Consider:

160:
Ray Leonard
Ray Robinson
Hagler
Monzon
Greb
Tiger
La Motta
Kid Gavilan
Griffith


175
Charles
Foster
Conn
Moore
The 70's generation
Loughran
Mike Moorer
Roy Jones Jr
---------------------------
Michelczeski
Virgil Hill


Answer yourself that....I've left out some names...but go through your own lists....does Bernard even rack up wins over the great fighters of those divisions?? I threw in DM and Hill as "linear/lineal" champs that Bernard might not even beat.

At 160 I think he could beat Greb- the old guys are terribly overrated, though, ironically, Greb would neutralize a lot of Bernards supposed "strengths" {viz: cheating} La Motta at 160? Hagler :: Bernard gets an ass whupping.

 

Yep, a win over Pacquiao when he couldn't hack it at times at 130.. well, it really isn't worth crap.

Insert a billion other examples here invalidating your butt-brained logic, if you like

 

I agree to a point: as I say, his longevity and his wins at this stage of his career genuinely entitle him to a high AT ranking. They are top level wins for sure and at an age where it shouldn't be possible.

But his latest is a win against a guy who lost to Carl Froch who lost to Kessler (who no-one rates too highly nowadays) who lost to Calzaghe etc etc. On the back of these alone, accepting surely that his MW reign was mediocre (albeit very successful), people want to stick him in the top 15 or so all time.

Seems a bit of an over-reaction to me.

MTF