Who will history rate higher?

[as214]

Assume BHOP gets by Taylor and then for his final fight moves up to 175 and easily beats the winner of Tarver/Johnson!! Both of these men easily beat RJ..He then retires. Will boxing purists and historians rate him as high as RJ in the history books?

[Manny_P]

That's a tough comparison ye know? I still think Roy is above Hopkins. Jest my opinion.

[jack_the_rippuh]

He'll get rated higher if he does that.

[TyrantT316]

higher if he gets past Taylor AND the winner of Johnson/Tarver

[Super_Lightweight]

hmm

Hopkins will not "easily" beat either one of those lightheavies, and in any case, no, beating Taylor and one of those guys does not put him above RJJ. Hopkins had his chance to avenge his loss vs RJJ and pussied out of it. He didn't want none of it.

Hopkins is great all-time. A master. He is a textbook. However, RJJ beat Tarver when he was old and severely weight-drained & dehydrated. He also beat a heavyweight champion. There is simply not enough time left in Hopkins' career to make him better than RJJ.

That said, if Hopkins loses in his upcoming fights, his ranking shouldn't go down either. If you can't lose when your 40 without hurting your "legacy" when can you.

[NiGe2011]

I think that it is close and that neither guy is obviously better then the other, the biggest knock that I have heard on Hopkins is that he has not had the best quality of opposition. I am sure that this argument has also sounded familiar to Roy Jones fans. Then there is Hopkins biggest asset which his impressive nine year title reign and eleven years since losing, but if I remeber correctly Roy has also collected alot of titles between middleweight and heavyweight and did not lose too many fights himself. So either way you look at it, it is pretty close.