Greater Ring Intelligence: HOPKINS or mayweather?

[bojangles1987]

I'm going to say Hopkins, because he has never had the physical gifts Floyd does, and is thriving into his 40s only because of his ring intelligence. I do think people underestimate how much Floyd depends on physical gifts such as speed and reflexes.

Maybe Floyd ends up dominating when he's lost his physical gifts like Hopkins has, but until then I think Hopkins has the edge here.

[brick wall]

hopkins for me...he's ring IQ has defied age and physical decline. floyd has not been to that stage and i doubt he ever will be...he will quit boxing even before that happens to him.

[V.WEBB]

Mayweather ahead on the polls ,this really is NSB,you may aswell have named the poll 'how many *****s troll these boards?'

I hope you were joking Roger Milliweather. Please tell me you were.

[V.WEBB]

Hopkins has a WAY better resume than Floyd. Look at how long he's been winning for and who he has done it against.

Floyd? He's too busy at strip clubs challenging police to fight, oh on "retirement" I mean.

Floyd has chosen not to live up to his potential. Reap the rewards sucker.

Oh look, another pac stan contributing nothing to the discussion (again).

[cupocity303]

You're missing the point.

Floyd has amazing natural athletic ability. He can do things, and get away with things, hopkins simply cannot do.

Most of the adjusting Floyd does in his fights are simply getting his opponents speed & timing down, then he knows the correct amount of distance he needs to keep. He adjusts in the ring. That's why he typically takes a couple rounds before he performs well (like against Mosley or Judah for example).

Hopkins studies his opponents, comes up with specific gameplans for each of his opponents. He takes away his opponents best weapons and uses it against them. For example once he took Pavlik's 1-2 away from him, he knew he wouldn't have anything else. The same was true for Tarver. Against Winky, knew his best weapon was his jab, so he smothered him, never allowing him to use his best weapon. Again, these are specific game plans that he executes. Even in his losses, like to Calzaghe, there was a gameplan and he executed it. He knew calzaghe's best weapon was volume punching, so he had to cut that down but moving laterally a lot and tying him up. The only issue there was his stamina in the second half of the fight. Against Pascal, he knew he had to be the aggressor and press the action. etc etc etc.

Floyd to me pretty much does the same stuff in each fight. He goes in there, feels them out, adjusts to the speed/timing of his opponent and that's it. Whereas bhop will fight completely different based on his opponents strengths/weaknesses.

This in a nutshell.