The real difference between Bore Hard and The Blow's competition...

[Derranged]

You need to chill out, slag, I was only messin' around with ya. Jesus.

Alright, fair enough..

[Duke_McKenzie]

But let's be fair here, both of them just have average resumes.

I'm not taking anything away from Calzaghe because I like watching him, but Hopkins has decent fighters on his resume too. They aren't great by any means, but I think Hopkins resume you could recongize more names on it then Calzaghes. Is it because they are American? Maybe, but they were also decent. I mean you give Hopkins crap for fighting Robert Allen 3 times, but the blow fought Mario Veit two times. Sure he KOd him twice,but Bhop blew
Allen out the second time and the only reason they fought a thrid was because he was a ****** mandatory and Hopkins played the safe game so he could fight Oscar De La Hoya for sure.



You can't blame Hopkins for fighting Trinidad or De La Hoya since they were fighting at 154 the majority of the time and Trinidad fit perfectly at 160. De La Hoya could be argued about not fiting in at 160, but not Trinidad.

The "Well Tarver was overrated and he ****** anyway" is pretty ****** to be honest. It's like saying that about Kessler, which I would never because both Tarver and Kessler are pretty good.

Calzaghe has some good names, as does Hopkins, but the majority of the title defenses the main competition was average. To be honest, I think Hopkins competetion are better then Calzaghe's, though I don't think people should discredit Hopkins or Calzaghe for their resumes because they have some great names on them also.

edit: Oh by the way, Happy Birthday Anorak. Or was it yesterday? Anyway Happy birthday.

Cheers man. Yeah, I don't BLAME Hopkins for fighting Tito or Oscar... but by the same token I don't make threads on here calling him a God or an ATG for those victories, or give him a Ring cover marked "A Leap To Immortality".

As for the Hop's general comp being "better known" I DO think it's because they're Yanks. You get Yanks on here claiming they know nothing about the likes of Reid or Eubank because they've not been on HBO, but do you think we know anything about Morrade Hakkar over here? (Quite funny that people talk about Hop fighting "da best da State's has to ofer, lamo" when so many of his opponents were literally European level comp anyway )

[kayjay]

The names on Hopkins's record are laughable. Joe's competition in 21 defenses is only slightly better, but it is better.

[Duke McKenzie]

This thread just will not be denied!

[BrooklynBomber]

*completed reading the thread* stamp

[Fox McCloud]

Bernard's competition reminds me a bit of a guy who Judah knocked out in 1 called Wayne Martell.

Martell had 2 impressive wins over Livingstone Bramble and Meldrick Taylor... in 2002.

Hopkins had 2 impressive wins over Felix Trinidad and Oscar De La Hoya... multiple weight classes above their starting weight.

[RightHandLead]

The names on Hopkins's record are laughable. Joe's competition in 21 defenses is only slightly better, but it is better.

Interesting statement. Can you explain what you see that makes Joe's resume better?

Off the top of my head, I can only think of Reid, Kessler, Lacy, Eubank (old)... Even if they were above their natural weight (though Tito looked great at MW), how can you discredit the DLH and Tito wins to such an extent. Or even beating Tarver at LHW and then fighting Wright.

[kayjay]

Interesting statement. Can you explain what you see that makes Joe's resume better?

Off the top of my head, I can only think of Reid, Kessler, Lacy, Eubank (old)... Even if they were above their natural weight (though Tito looked great at MW), how can you discredit the DLH and Tito wins to such an extent. Or even beating Tarver at LHW and then fighting Wright.

In both cases the majority of their defenses were against guys who were not serious threats.

Hop unified against Oscar and Tito; Joe against Kessler and Lacy.

Tito looked good at MW, for a second, but did he look better at the weight than Lacy did at 168 before running into Calz?

Oscar at MW was a joke, and I say that as an Oscar fan.

Kessler and Lacy were undefeated champs who had run through several defenses each, and had beaten former champs in dramatic fashion. Kessler hardly lost a round in his career, destroyed Mundine, Beyer, and other respectable comp.

Kessler is the best win and the best performance either of them ever had. Lacy is second. Reid might be the third best win between the two.

Tarver is Hop's best win but it doesn't count. I still don't think it evens the score. I'd pick Kessler to destroy Tarver any day of the week.

[RightHandLead]

In both cases the majority of their defenses were against guys who were not serious threats.

Hop unified against Oscar and Tito; Joe against Kessler and Lacy.

Tito looked good at MW, for a second, but did he look better at the weight than Lacy did at 168 before running into Calz?

Oscar at MW was a joke, and I say that as an Oscar fan.

Kessler and Lacy were undefeated champs who had run through several defenses each, and had beaten former champs in dramatic fashion. Kessler hardly lost a round in his career, destroyed Mundine, Beyer, and other respectable comp.

Kessler is the best win and the best performance either of them ever had. Lacy is second. Reid might be the third best win between the two.

Tarver is Hop's best win but it doesn't count. I still don't think it evens the score. I'd pick Kessler to destroy Tarver any day of the week.

Things I agree with: Oscar was a joke at MW. Both guy defended against a majority of non-threats. Kessler was the best win between them. Things I don't agree with: Tito looked basically unstoppable before facing Bernard Hopkins. Unstoppable. Lacy was looking like a prospect with a good future. Tito WAS the future. Also, Kessler is too robotic and mechanical to beat Antonio Tarver. He would get frustrated by the jab, and Antonio definitely wouldn't be perturbed by the foot movement. The Jones that fought Tarver the first time is still better than a prime Kessler. Last thing is that Reid is definitely not on the level of even a Howard Eastman. And he still beat Calzaghe.

[kayjay]

OK, Kessler against Tarver is a different issue, so I'll drop that (TS and I discussed this the other day in the Tarver thread)

Reid better than Eastman? I don't know. It doesn't matter because he didn't beat Calzaghe. He said he didn't. And it's the only close decision Calz had on an off night. On an off night he didn't lose. Hope had off nights, but worse, he lost twice to Taylor.

In any case I only claimed from the start that Calz's defenses were slightly better. Calz had two top-tier defenses, Hop one. If you discard Lacy (which we wouldn't have done before Calz ruined him), we're left with Tito versus Kessler. Pound for pound obviously Tito is better, but as a defense at MW he's not. So it's damn close.

Eastman, Reid, and everyone else is a secondary issue. neither Hop nor Calz were going to lose