Bernard Hopkins - Legendary or Overratted

[Pugilistic™]

i got a better one...lets name the last middleweight hopkins made move up two divisions...

you talking about Wright and Pavlik ?

two guys who were the favourites to beat Hopkins ? Pavlik was supposed to KO the old man.

Wright and Pavlik became blown up fighters after Hopkins dished them out a L.

[ИATAS]

get the f**k outta here...he didn't immediately move up to 175 like you make it out to be...he got punked out of the division by taylor, watched tarver struggle with jones in the third fight, then watched tarver hang out with stallone on the movie set, then after all of that, decided to move up...

LOL you dumb ass, now you're just making **** up.

Hopkins SECOND fight with Taylor was in Dec of 2005.
Tarvers THIRD fight with Roy Jones was in OCT of 2005.

So your sorry ass story doesn't make any sense.

Hopkins was obligated to fight Taylor in a rematch, as he wanted revenge. This was AFTER Tarver beat Jones you fucktard.

And LOL, you guys are PATHETIC. Saying that Hopkins knew Tarver would gain all this weight for a movie, and hopkins would sit back and wait for tarver to lose the weight then fight him, as if it was a Hopkins conspiracy from the start. In fact, Hopkins paid sylvester stallone $1.5 million dollars to hire Tarver as Mason Dixon!! It was an evil conspiracy done by the evil bernard hopkins. Hopkins is also apart of the Illuminati and the NWO. He sucks blood and eats newborn children for satanic rituals.

[Chr0nic]

people gotta stop bringing up the toney being weight drained excuse against jones, for a guy that was weight drained toney sure was'nt that outta breath
look at jones-tarver to see a weight drained fighter

[Dr. Ironfist]

First of all Ali was a dirty fighter and a cheater. Thats a fact. But anyways here is the way Joe Calzaghe could become the greatest of all time in the minds of boxing fans. Its they way Ali did it, its the way Foreman did it, its the way Bhop is doing it. Fight until you are 50. If you win a fight it goes on your resume like the Shavers, Moorer, Pavlik...if you lose a fight who cares...you were old like the Spinks, Morrison, Calzaghe. So fight until youre 75, because you literally can lose nothing in the minds of boxing fans who love excuses. Bhop fights relatively the same now as he ever did. You can say his stamina isnt the same, but 10 minutes of rest from fake low blows can make up for quite a few years. Fact is this is boxing. Whats to say what would happen on any given night. Anyone who says, "Man jones would have killed Calzaghe" is clearly a biased moron because what evidence can they back it up with. Calzaghe's never lost, never really been hurt in the fight, all 4 times he was knocked down he either came back and fought at least 8 more rounds and won a decision or he KO'ed his opponent that round. So you cant say anyone would beat Joe because you dont know what he's capable of. And people say he ducked people, he begged to fight Americans absolutely begged them. However, why should he come to the states, give up his titles, change weight classes, lose money on training expenses and such compared ot what he makes on the fight, in order to fight in another fighters backyard. I mean its a joke. Sure Ali fought a lot of guys from different weight classes, but he wasn't moving his weight. Bob Foster was 180 lbs and Ali was 221 when they fought. He wasnt coming down to meet Foster. (another way to be considered great, fight people who weigh 41 lbs less than you and make them come to your division.)

[JM1]

Hopkins is a legend he is definetly the best fighter of the last 20 years.

definitely a legend but not the best fighter in the last 20yrs

[Benncollinsaad]

Oh ****, I thought it was because Tarver was poisoned?!?

LMAO, so everyone has an excuse right? James Toney only lost to Roy Jones because Toney had to lose 44 pounds in 6 weeks, not because of Jones' skills right? Pacquiao only beat Hatton because Hatton was shot and Floyd Sr. ruined him as his trainer. I can go on and on and on.

Denying the fact that hopkins SKILLS took away Tarver's one-two punch and didn't allow him to set up his shots, just like he did against Trinidad and just like he did against Pavlik, is just plain ignorance man. What you think it was a huge coincidence he beat those guys silly?? Study the fights. Watch the angles hopkins is at, his lateral movement, the distance he stays at, his defense, etc. There is a reason he made these guys look bad, and it had nothing to do with weight, poison, swine flu or space aliens.

Nobody was poisoned. You can find a dozen articles that support this story. Anyway, youre right, Hopkins fought too much like a coward to allow himself to be lured into a brawl.

[fabzmm]

I guess a legend

But he's way overated. Hopkins, DLH, Tarver, Pavlik were all blown up. He's lost 3 times over the last what 4 years? Never moved up and challeged anybody during his regin. Hopkins is a smart guy, he changed his eating to stay at 160 where he was much bigger than everyone else.

notice on the famous 60/40 interview the first thing out of hopkins mouth is "reasonable reasonable catchweight and we'll split 50/50?". he's always looking for a weight advantage any way he can get.

[ИATAS]

Nobody was poisoned. You can find a dozen articles that support this story. Anyway, youre right, Hopkins fought too much like a coward to allow himself to be lured into a brawl.

hahahaha, so now you're a coward unless you brawl?!? WTF has this site come to? Leave the site man, please. You're no fan of boxing if you truly believe that.

[Benncollinsaad]

hahahaha, so now you're a coward unless you brawl?!? WTF has this site come to? Leave the site man, please. You're no fan of boxing if you truly believe that.

Go **** in your hat. Hopkins and Whitaker are no legends, they just know how to avoid getting hit too much. I never respected nor will I respect guys who just play defence and counterpunch all night. All the greatest fighters never did just that.

[DiegoFuego]

I would never call Hopkins overrated, but he's definitely not above Mayweather , Whitaker or Pacquiao. He probably shouldn't be rated ahead of Lewis either.

Beating Trinidad was impressive given how Tito was tearing through the boxing industry like nothing, but Trinidad was a smaller guy who had already had his ears boxed off by Oscar two years earlier. And beating De La Hoya was not a big win at all. It was a big fight but one boxing fans knew wouldn't be close

Beating a weight-drained Tarver was not impressive. Beating Tarver at all isn't that impressive really, and I'm a Tarver fan. I picked Tarver to win when the fight was announced given how Hopkins couldn't even throw punches against Taylor, but after hearing Tarver had to come down from something like 225, that just took the luster off of it for me.

His next best win is probably Kelly Pavlik or Winky Wright - a middleweight and a junior middleweight trying their luck at 175. Not that impressive. Again, the Pavlik thing is similar to the Tarver thing. Hopkins could hardly throw punches against Calzaghe, so people thought Pavlik would beat him, myself included, based on activity. But I never thought Pavlik was a great fighter by any stretch. I just thought Hopkins was too old to keep pace.