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No way. 
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How does this work? Hopkins was a huge middleweight that started at light heavyweight and deliberately shrunk himself down to get to middleweight to be bigger than everyone. Duran was a normal sized lightweight, often smaller than many of his lightweight opponents, and started out at super bantamweight. He never had to drain himself to get to lightweight deliberately because he was so big until he started to get famous and his partying got out of control. Even then he was able to get down to his natural size pretty easily, only just before thirty deciding that he could not be bothered trying to get down. The fact he was able to keep getting down for so long after blowing up so badly in between fights shows that his natural weight was lightweight. I've noticed some people throwing this thing out there a lot recently about him being some huge lightweight, when he quite simply wasn't. He was absolutely a normal sized lightweight. The only opponent that I can remember him being bigger than was Vilomar Fernandez. After lightweight, he never fought anyone smaller than him so that whole statement is just a bit absurd.
Look at their respective fights at their main weights. Hopkins looks big compared to all of his opponents, whereas Duran never does. In fact, he was often the smaller guy so this is quite simply completely untrue and has obviously not been slightly thought about by watching their actual fights. I have both guys early fights at LW and MW. Duran never had to try and make lightweight until much later during the height of his fame and partying when he was often getting hideously fat in between fights and that was toward the end of his reign anyway.
Think about this way? The average height and reach for a middleweight would probably be around 5'10"/6 foot with a 74" reach. The average lightweight size would be around 5'7" with a 68" reach. Hopkins is bigger than that at 6'1" with a 75" reach and Duran is smaller than that average. Maybe you've never seen his fights until he was blown up and fat fighting at JMW and MW, where he was very obviously too fat and couldn't handle the weight properly as it made him lunge and often be completely off balance. Try watching his lightweight fights and you'll see that most of his opponents are neither smaller in height, reach or muscle. Guys like Buchanan, Bizarro, Thompson, Robertson etc were all bigger and if you look at his early lightweight and even some of his fights under lightweight he was absolutely no bigger than any of them. The legendary Japanese long time unified SFW champion Kobayashi moved up to fight Duran at LW and was the same size as him. You can find the fight on youtube I think. Check it out. Or another Japanese fighter, 'Guts' Ishimatsu who was the lightweight champion that dethroned Rodolfo Gonzalez and fought Duran was noticeably bigger in their fight as well. So honestly, whatever you think is just wrong and based on all their fights, and their height, reach etc, it is very easy to find out.
Hopkins was a genuinely big middleweight, which you can see and against all his opponents and also because he started out at LHW thinking that was his natural weight. Duran was a genuinely normal sized LW, and at any other weight beyond that was a small fighter. The same size as Pacman, though apart from the Leonard fight, even Pac looked naturally more suited to WW and 140 than Duran did who was always slightly flabby around the middlweight apart from against Palomino and Leonard, in which he came well under the WW limit anyway.
Edit: Just thinking about Hopkins opponents; A big lightweight is Oscar. He was a genuine WW. See, Duran was never a genuine WW and Oscar would have towered over Duran at LW by a lot. I think Oscar is about 5'10 and a half. That's well over three 1/2 inches taller. See, that's a big LW. A guy that is 5'6" 1/2 is not.Last edited by BennyST; 07-13-2009, 09:00 AM.Comment
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puts burner's posts in to pospective.
pure assclown.Comment
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nope, he's somewhere in the top 50 thoComment
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ATG? yes...Top 10? I wouldn't put him over Jones. And about 20-40 others.Comment
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Yeah...sure Hops had a longer career but that doesn't quite equal better. I'd give it to Jones based on accomplishments. Still, Hops isn't far behind at all.Comment
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Im a B-Hop fan but I wouldnt put him in top 10 ATG. Maybe 20-30 and not far on Jones.Comment
silly hopkins fans.
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