Why did Hopkins choose opponents from smaller weight classes?

[RichCCFC]

The most belts Tarver ever had was two, Kessler had two too. Why is Tarver considered elite and Kessler isn't?

And don't make me laugh saying Johnson is elite, what a ****ing joke!

Good fighter,no where near elite.

[hunter1]

Bernard hopkins is a bum

[ИATAS]

if you are going to make up lies about how great hopkins title reign was!!
people are going to bring up the fact that bernard fought the same light middleweight bum 3 times during that title reign!!

Are you seriously this ******? It's clear you are an idiot. I just explained to you in plain English why hopkins fought this guy three times. Again, he was a mandatory fight, the first fight was a NC they had to reschedule the fight, second time hopkins whooped his ass, third time which was 5 years later allen became the #1 contender again thus being another mandatory. Do you understand that? Is that simple enough for you?

John David Jackson-who was coming of a lose to a bum with a 9-6 record!
Simon Brown-a shot welterweight with 5 losses
the legendary William Bo James- as bad a fighter to have ever stepped in the ring!!
the amazing Andrew Council-who had already been abused by winky and robert allen at light middle!!!

wow, nice job finding four mediocre guys on his resume (Jacson was like 35-2 I think though). You can nitpick ANYONES resume, especially guys that have long title reigns. Look at Calzaghe's 21 title defenses for example. You will find names that aren't that good, like Peter Manfredo. Look at the great Carlos Monzon's title streak. He fought a guy who was 37-34 after he won the belts. Marvin Hagler fought a guy who was 40-38 after winning a belt. ****, Kelly Pavlik just fought Gary ****in Lockett.

The fact of the matter remains - Hopkins cleared out the division, beat everyone they threw in front of him, was the first person to unify the middlweight division since hagler and set a record for 20 title defenses. During those 20 title defenses he was never hurt, knocked down, or even cut. He won every one of those fights by a wide margin of victory. Not a single fight was even semi-close. Since turning 40 years old, which is almost unheard of, he has fought the best possible opponents. If you cannot admit that he's had an impressive career you either a). don't know **** about boxing or b). are a hater. Simple as that comrade.

Felix Trinidad- who was a good welter and light middle!!!

Again, how many times do I need to repeat myself on this board? Trinidad was a middlweight, just destroyed joppy, was undefeated and more importantly he was a MIDDLEWEIGHT CHAMPION. Trinidad was a 6 to 1 favorite to beat hopkins. Hopkins wanted to unify the division. In order to do so, he had to beat Trinidad. It was a huge fight. What would anyone else do? Would Hagler be like, "nah dawg, I'm middleweight champion, I know hearns has a belt and all but really he was better as a welterweight, so **** that **** dawg I aint going to fight him I'll just fight other guys that started their careers at middlweight, **** it."

Oscar De La Hoya- a fighter who started at superfeatherweight!!! LOL!!!

But was fighting at middlweight. I admit he looked ****ty at middlweight prior to hopkins, but so what? There isn't a single fighter in the world that wold turn down a fight with oscar de la hoya (****, even pacquaio is going to fight him). It's every boxers dream. For one, it was hopkins biggest pay day ever (he made over $10 million for that fight), two it's a **** load of exposure. Only an absolute moron would turn this fight down.

it was james toneys vacant title roy and bernard were fighting for!!
bernard only dared to make noise about a title shot immediatley AFTER toney vacated
his belt!!!

And he vacated why? To go up in weight.

he only fought roy becuase roy was green and not considered to be as good as toney yet!!

Oh yeah, so Hopkins was scared of James Toney but not scared of Roy jones?? LMAO, get the **** out of here!

And you're acting like Hopkins was in his prime, he was extremely green then too, even more so then Roy Jones (Jones had an amerature career and the olympics while hopkins was in prison).

bernard could have gotten a title shot in 1992!! or he could have fought toney in a non title fight in 1991, but he was to afraid!!

So now you're just making up stories? haha

So Bernard hopkins should have fought toney all the back in 1991 when he had like 11-15 fights on his record and they were still building him up as a prospect? Smart move there, yeah really smart.

[warp1432]

Not to mention no one had even heard of Bernard Hopkins back in 1992.

The most belts Tarver ever had was two, Kessler had two too. Why is Tarver considered elite and Kessler isn't?

Because Tarver has beaten better competition. I think most people think Kessler is elite on here, but so is Tarver. Glen Johnson was also elite because he beat Tarver and other top light heavy weights.


Also Hopkins walked around at 160ish when fighting at Middleweight.

Edit: Oh and John David Jackson was pretty good. He was winning every round against Castro before he got Kod. I don't know what happened to him against that 9-6 guy.