I'm looking through my Hopkins fights and trying to fight the time when he switched from an aggressive power puncher to a more defensive counter puncher.
Around what fight did Bernard Hopkins switch styles?
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Most people seem to believe it was around the time of the Eastman fight.
I would agree with that.
He showed signs of becoming a bit more tactical at times in the final Allen fight and the Joppy fight, but I don't think he fully settled into it until Eastman.Comment
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The 1st fight I had seen him in was the Keith Holmes fight and he fought similar to the way he usually does now in that fight, as opposed to older fights I had seen later where he took more chances and tried to get guys out of there.Comment
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I would agree with this. While age became a factor; opponent quality also played a large part and people don't talk about it.
Hopkins fought a stream of decent/mediocre competition through much of his title holding years and then in the early 2000's age and opponents caught up with him. When he stepped in the ring against Taylor he was old whereas his opponent was young and undefeated. From there he kept up against good opponents he couldn't too often freely open up against even if he wanted to.Comment
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Completely agree with this.I would agree with this. While age became a factor; opponent quality also played a large part and people don't talk about it.
Hopkins fought a stream of decent/mediocre competition through much of his title holding years and then in the early 2000's age and opponents caught up with him. When he stepped in the ring against Taylor he was old whereas his opponent was young and undefeated. From there he kept up against good opponents he couldn't too often freely open up against even if he wanted to.
Throughout his career he always had those technical defensive skills, but more often than not he opted to make it a firefight like he did against guys like Hall and Echols.The 1st fight I had seen him in was the Keith Holmes fight and he fought similar to the way he usually does now in that fight, as opposed to older fights I had seen later where he took more chances and tried to get guys out of there.
But even in those head to head scraps that he was famous for during his Middleweight reign he would break out some of the defensive maneuvers that he's become more famous for now.Comment
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The Eastman fight was a counterpunching master piece. I do not find technicians boring.Comment
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he just destroyed Joppys face in that one.Comment
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