It's funny how Hopkins is discredited for fighting WW'S when Hagler

[boxing_great]

It's funny how writers and the boxing public have criticised Bernard Hopkins for fighting smaller fighters and blown up welterweights such as Tito, Oscar and Winky, and how he will never be amongst the very elite and amongst the all-time great middleweights because he didn't have the competition that Hagler did, which is a load of crap.

Hagler for that matter fought blown up welterweights himself.
Leonard and Hearns were both welterweights, and Duran started of as a lightweight.

So how the hell does Hopkins get discredited for fighting these smaller fighters when Hagler did the exact same thing and is recognised by most as the best middleweight of all time..

[Thread Stealer]

Hagler had better opposition on the road to the title, and as champ as well, but both Hagler and Hopkins are near the top of the all-time MW list.

Most of the greatest middleweights fought former welterweight champs moving up.

Hagler had Hearns, Leonard, Duran (peaked at 135).

Hopkins had DLH, Trinidad.

Monzon had Griffith, Napoles.

Robinson, well he was a former WW champ himself (and beat the LW champ in a non-title bout) and he was aging, but he also had a former WW champ and smaller guy on his ledger at MW in Carmen Basilio.

[WhoreUs]

It's funny how writers and the boxing public have criticised Bernard Hopkins for fighting smaller fighters and blown up welterweights such as Tito, Oscar and Winky, and how he will never be amongst the very elite and amongst the all-time great middleweights because he didn't have the competition that Hagler did, which is a load of crap.

Hagler for that matter fought blown up welterweights himself.
Leonard and Hearns were both welterweights, and Duran started of as a lightweight.

So how the hell does Hopkins get discredited for fighting these smaller fighters when Hagler did the exact same thing and is recognised by most as the best middleweight of all time..

first of bernard hopkins is a big middleweight. hagler is a small one. bernard's first fight was at 175 for god's sake.

second no offense to tito , oscar and winky because i love all 3 but they are no duran or leonard.

third hearns won belts at 160 , 168 , 175 and 190 AFTER he loss to hagler. leonard won belts at 160 , 168 and 175. duran won a 160 belt when he beat iran years after he loss to hagler.

how many fights did winky , oscar and tito together combined win at 160? how many belts did they win at 160 or higher after the hopkins fight?

he forced winky to fight at 170 for god's sake.

[Dan...]

I agree with you on Trinidad. He should get credit for that win because Tito looked like a legitimate MW champion when he destroyed Joppy.

I gotta disagree with you on Oscar though. De la Hoya was not a successful MW. He won a fight which he should have lost against a half decent champion in Sturm then got beaten by Hopkins. Oscar was not a legitimate MW and therefore Bernard should only get limited praise for his victory.

With regard to Winky, Wright was not only past his best and out of shape in that fight but he was also fighting at a weight significantly higher than any that he had ever fought at previously.

So in conclusion, I think Bernard deserves full credit for his win over Tito but only limited credit for the de la Hoya and Wright wins.

Now lets look at Marvin. Wha you need to consider that both Duran and Hearns went on to achieve significant wins and win world titles at MW and above after they lost to Marvin. Leonard is not really worth discussing as Sugar Ray beat him (at least officially) but that win would have received a significant amount of credit as again, Ray achieved things above MW after his fight against Hagler.

[WhoreUs]

I agree with you on Trinidad. He should get credit for that win because Tito looked like a legitimate MW champion when he destroyed Joppy.

I gotta disagree with you on Oscar though. De la Hoya was not a successful MW. He won a fight which he should have lost against a half decent champion in Sturm then got beaten by Hopkins. Oscar was not a legitimate MW and therefore Bernard should only get limited praise for his victory.

With regard to Winky, Wright was not only past his best and out of shape in that fight but he was also fighting at a weight significantly higher than any that he had ever fought at previously.

So in conclusion, I think Bernard deserves full credit for his win over Tito but only limited credit for the de la Hoya and Wright wins.

Now lets look at Marvin. Wha you need to consider that both Duran and Hearns went on to achieve significant wins and win world titles at MW and above after they lost to Marvin. Leonard is not really worth discussing as Sugar Ray beat him (at least officially) but that win would have received a significant amount of credit as again, Ray achieved things above MW after his fight against Hagler.

smart guy.

[BennyST]

It's funny how writers and the boxing public have criticised Bernard Hopkins for fighting smaller fighters and blown up welterweights such as Tito, Oscar and Winky, and how he will never be amongst the very elite and amongst the all-time great middleweights because he didn't have the competition that Hagler did, which is a load of crap.

Hagler for that matter fought blown up welterweights himself.
Leonard and Hearns were both welterweights, and Duran started of as a lightweight.

So how the hell does Hopkins get discredited for fighting these smaller fighters when Hagler did the exact same thing and is recognised by most as the best middleweight of all time..

Hopkins is definitely regarded as one of the best MW's ever. What makes you think he isn't? He would be in the top five pretty easily by most people's account.

I guess one thing you could also say though is that Hopkins was a very big MW himself. Oscar wasn't a MW at all, while Tito was a decent, normal sized MW who had just come off a destructive victory of the very good MW champ Joppy. The Tito win was a very good one, the Oscar one was also very good, but the size difference was quite large.

Hagler's size difference was never very much against either Leonard or Hearns. In fact he was the smaller guy against Hearns and was about the same size as Leonard who was also a very large WW. Duran was really the only small previous WW champ he faced. Apart from those guys though, everyone else he faced were all quite large MW's.

The size difference only comes into question because it was so obvious on fight night. Hopkins looked much larger than both of those guys and was able to push them around pretty easily, whereas Hagler never really looked much bigger than Hearns or Leonard. He only looked a lot bigger than Duran, which is not exactly unusual him being a former feather-weight.

Nonetheless, they were great wins by Hopkins and he is most certainly up there with the greatest MW's of all time. Whatever made you think he is not is beyond me, especially in light of his recent destruction of the newly crowned and magnificently hyped MW champ, which just put him that much higher. Well, not higher as such, but cemented his place among the greats.

[BennyST]

first of bernard hopkins is a big middleweight. hagler is a small one. bernard's first fight was at 175 for god's sake.

second no offense to tito , oscar and winky because i love all 3 but they are no duran or leonard.

third hearns won belts at 160 , 168 , 175 and 190 AFTER he loss to hagler. leonard won belts at 160 , 168 and 175. duran won a 160 belt when he beat iran years after he loss to hagler.

how many fights did winky , oscar and tito together combined win at 160? how many belts did they win at 160 or higher after the hopkins fight?

he forced winky to fight at 170 for god's sake.

Duran also won a belt at 168 after the loss of course, though it was a small alphabet title, and not one of the major bodies (WBC, WBA or IBF). Still it showed that he was still capable at those much higher weights and of course he still won the fight against the very large MW Iran Barkley.

So, even that shows that he was more impressive at those weights and at that advanced age than Oscar, who was also a former FW (though it was only for two fights, whereas Duran actually started at FW and had many fights there). It would have been impressive if he beat Wright at MW, sadly he didn't so I don't take that into account as much in terms of his MW standing. Wright looked absolutely terrible anyway and had never fought anywhere near that high.

[boxing_great]

Hopkins is definitely regarded as one of the best MW's ever. What makes you think he isn't? He would be in the top five pretty easily by most people's account.

I guess one thing you could also say though is that Hopkins was a very big MW himself. Oscar wasn't a MW at all, while Tito was a decent, normal sized MW who had just come off a destructive victory of the very good MW champ Joppy. The Tito win was a very good one, the Oscar one was also very good, but the size difference was quite large.

Hagler's size difference was never very much against either Leonard or Hearns. In fact he was the smaller guy against Hearns and was about the same size as Leonard who was also a very large WW. Duran was really the only small previous WW champ he faced. Apart from those guys though, everyone else he faced were all quite large MW's.

The size difference only comes into question because it was so obvious on fight night. Hopkins looked much larger than both of those guys and was able to push them around pretty easily, whereas Hagler never really looked much bigger than Hearns or Leonard. He only looked a lot bigger than Duran, which is not exactly unusual him being a former feather-weight.

Nonetheless, they were great wins by Hopkins and he is most certainly up there with the greatest MW's of all time. Whatever made you think he is not is beyond me, especially in light of his recent destruction of the newly crowned and magnificently hyped MW champ, which just put him that much higher. Well, not higher as such, but cemented his place among the greats.

well, he is considered perhaps in the top 5, but I was really focusing on the point that he is discredited for fighting smaller fighters.

[Silencers]

I agree with all the points here. Also, they were still using same day weigh ins during Hagler's reign which makes the size difference less than the 3 guys that fought Hopkins.

[Dan...]

I agree with all the points here. Also, they were still using same day weigh ins during Hagler's reign which makes the size difference less than the 3 guys that fought Hopkins.

Excellent point. Also needs to be factored in there for sure.