B-Hops accepts 40%, makes Roy come down 5lb in return. IMO, Hopkins was a better fighter at that point than the one Jones fought. He had learned his craft even more, become even more fundamentally sound, added the spoiling and dirty tactics on the inside. I also think Hopkins had figured a couple fundamental things out in their first fight (namely on pressing punching range, and starting his assaults from closer in, allowing him to follow up on his jabs more as the fight went on). I think this might have been too close to call, but I like Hopkins by SD.
I don't, personally. Roy was Roy until his body ran out of Royness. Hops genuinely learned through the 90s.
I think it's closer in the sense that Bernard gets more done than he did in '93... but at the end of the day, I think he's made to hesitate too often, just as he was in the actual fight... Jones by close/clear... 7-5 type
A real shame we didn't get to see this fight. Back then, I liked Roy to take this fight in a clear decision. Hop would certainly have his moments but at the time Roy was just a special kind of fighter. Hop greater in an overall sense but Jones head to head in their primes.
Jones was simply just a better fighter. He'd always have had Hopkins' number. Their first fight was not close (despite some in-roads being made in recent years to mythologise it), & this one would've been more intriguing, but never in doubt. Jones UD's it.
Jones would have had anyone's (his size or smaller) number. Jones was just a phenom. Hopkins would have given him a tougher fight than MOST though.
I don't believe in supermen. Roy wasn't any different to any other great fighter ever other than that the only great fighter he ever fought was green as tea leaves. By 1999 he wasn't. could go either way.
you know what is funny? back then.. maybe before 99 but around that time, a bunch of people around the boxing gyms i knew and people at the figths used to talk about how Bernard was so over-rated. people forget it wasnt' really until he DESTROYED Tito that people started really appreciating him.
Yeah, nobody gets excited about technical fighters until they have an opportunity to dominate a marque name....people want punchers or speeedsters or brawlers. Winky and JMM were ignored the same way, I suppose.
This is only ever a competitive fight once RJJ is shot. A RJJ anywhere near his peak beats BHop ten times out of ten. The fact that Hopkins is the better fighter in their 40s means nothing to me whatsoever. Perhaps Tony Sibson could beat Hagler when they are both in their 70s! A peak RJJ beats the Hopkins of any period without a hell of a lot of difficulty. I find it fascinating that so many so called experts talk about RJJ being a fighter whose reflexes deserted him and he had nothing to fall back on - his reflexes went when he was 35 after basically being unbeaten for 20 years!! Hopkins, Toney - very good fighters couldn't touch him. BHop deserves great credit for a HOF career but no way on God's green earth could he beat a peak RJJ. Gibola
Green Hopks lost 8-4 on all 3 cards, pretty much splitting the last 8 rounds and improved immensely over the next 6, 7 years. Mythologizing Jones as some sort of superman is a wee bit teenage.
Roy had gone the 12 round distance a sizzling zero times when he fought Bernard back in '93. He had fought more than eight rounds only once. Roy was a better, more experienced boxer in 1999.
agREED. There's a reason Hopkins chose to rematch him when he did. Even he knows what version of Roy he faced.
Agreed that Jones is heavily mythologised. The truth has to lie somewhere between his fanboys & his haters. Cliche as that may sound, he is a man who inspires extremism.
I don't think I have any extreme feelings on him. He's a great fighter, just not unique among great fighters in being unbeatable. And I think Hopkins had become a great fighter between 1993 & 1999 and any contest between them at that point would be damn close. Hops had learned and developed ALLOT (he was a late starter in the game remember and a studious learner and the effects of that were glaring between say 94 & 98 in many aspects of his style). In contrast Roy was a very early starter and first & foremost a natural, intuitive physical talent, at least in comparison to Hopkins career arc. I can't envision this not being very, very close.
Hopkins might win two or three rounds because Roy was busy making faces and smiling at people he recognized in the crowd.
Then Roy would ascend up over the ring lights in an open armed christ pose and evaporate into a cloud of golden shimmering light which would slowly fountain out over the crowd like sacred ephemeral rain, curing all disease.
