Hard to go against Chavez for greater, since he is such a legend in mexico. Still, looking at it coldly, bhop might have the better wins, even though hes a lot less "romanticized" As for better, again, very difficult to say. Fuck it, ill take the easy way out and say that both are pretty much equals.
I've got Chavez for both in a clear, but not wide margin. You could say that Hopkins was more multidimensional, but Chavez IMO was more dominant and effective in his one simplistic, yet unrelenting dimension than Hop was in his versality.
I used to think Chavez was overrated and Hopkins was underrated. I still think that's probably about right, but I would've said that Chavez was floating around the 60 mark, and Hopkins was just inside the top 40. I think I'd probably reverse that nowadays. Neither have strong résumés, but Chavez's is marginally better. He has some very talented fighters on there, and he wasn't much, much bigger than them. Hopkins' has the edge in longevity, dominance, weight jumping, etc; but his win sheet is so poor that I can't have him higher. I think Hopkins has a great argument for being better, and I'd rate him higher head-to-head at 160 than I'd rate Chavez at 135.
I don't know about greater, but I do believe Chavez was better. It's one thing to be a defensive master and ring general when you're a conniving boxer with guile and a controlled output. It's quite another to have a great defensive radar and ring generalship whilst coming forward with 100% intensity, yet Chavez could pull it off.
