Boxing schedule for the month of March
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Ward is a lot like Hopkins in many ways although a prime Hopkins was better and could do more, but the problem Ward faces I think is a lack of "stars" to elevate him to the next level. There are no Trinidad's or Oscar's or Roy Jones' for Ward. Froch, Kessler, Bute, Dawson (and maybe Pascal, Cloud at 175) are all very good wins but again, no real A class stars for him to fight, not at least in the near future (1-2 years). With that said I think he's p4p #1 fighter in the world.
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CHRISHOGGALYPSE
Yeah, it's so hard to really know this without facing the same opposition as at least a decent barometer other than Dawson beat Hopkins (coming off a shoulder injury or not) and Ward taxed him (weight drained or not). BHOP is the man though, no question about it.
I know most will disagree but I always feel like maybe Bhop gets a little too much credit for the Trinidad win. I hated Trinidad while he was active but appreciated him much more later but he wasn't that "great" of a boxer. DLH embarrassed him but gave the fight away (and still should've won), Winky embarrassed him too. Bhop beat him and dominated but also the whole situation with the events on 9/11 seem to have affected Tito a lot more than Bhop. I think Bhop would've beat him anyway due to the style match up, but overall Tito wasn't that great. Bhop's win over DLH is overstated too to me because DLH was on the obvious down slope in his career. DLH struggled with a faded Vargas (even though he was hopped up on roids), struggled in the 2nd Mosley fight when he wasn't fighting well either (and probably on roids himself), didn't look very good against Sturm, then actually fought well against Bhop for the first half of the fight, but this was only his 2nd fight at 160. Bhop should've been able to knock him out considering that. Then there's the Tarver win, who just lost an obscene amount of weight to fight at 175 again and looked terrible. He then beat a blown up Winky Wright at 170lbs, and Pavlik at 170 (both weights neither had fought at before). I think Pascal was actually a pretty dangerous opponent at Hopkins age though with his speed and strength and he handled him. That was a great performance for real. The Cloud win should've and was easy with the way Cloud fights and he was exposed vs. Campillo. I don't have anything against Bhop, but with as much crap as other fighters take for their opponents, Bhop deserves a lot of the same criticism too.
I know most will disagree but I always feel like maybe Bhop gets a little too much credit for the Trinidad win. I hated Trinidad while he was active but appreciated him much more later but he wasn't that "great" of a boxer. DLH embarrassed him but gave the fight away (and still should've won), Winky embarrassed him too. Bhop beat him and dominated but also the whole situation with the events on 9/11 seem to have affected Tito a lot more than Bhop. I think Bhop would've beat him anyway due to the style match up, but overall Tito wasn't that great. Bhop's win over DLH is overstated too to me because DLH was on the obvious down slope in his career. DLH struggled with a faded Vargas (even though he was hopped up on roids), struggled in the 2nd Mosley fight when he wasn't fighting well either (and probably on roids himself), didn't look very good against Sturm, then actually fought well against Bhop for the first half of the fight, but this was only his 2nd fight at 160. Bhop should've been able to knock him out considering that. Then there's the Tarver win, who just lost an obscene amount of weight to fight at 175 again and looked terrible. He then beat a blown up Winky Wright at 170lbs, and Pavlik at 170 (both weights neither had fought at before). I think Pascal was actually a pretty dangerous opponent at Hopkins age though with his speed and strength and he handled him. That was a great performance for real. The Cloud win should've and was easy with the way Cloud fights and he was exposed vs. Campillo. I don't have anything against Bhop, but with as much crap as other fighters take for their opponents, Bhop deserves a lot of the same criticism too.
Ward is completely dominating the top competition when people gave him no chance against them before the Super 6 started. It doesn't seem like ANYONE picked Ward to win it all and he made them all look like amateurs. Dawson was a p4p fighter too and he embarrassed him. You're right though 206, from this point forward his pickings for competition get significantly more slim for the next couple years.
Luckily I saved this before the crash was pissed after I wrote all this just for the site to go down
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HERESY and gigglingmonkey
I realize all of that, and like I said, I'm not knocking Hopkins and hindsight is always easier to see and understand things. I don't feel responding to all of that but I will briefly
Odds mean nothing on a fight after the fact, those are stoked by people betting on a particular fighter. Bhop hardly had any fans at that time, Trinidad had a HUGE fan base and was a superstar in the fight. Pacquiao was also like a 4:1 favorite over Marquez in the 3rd fight, so what? Anyone who really knew boxing knew that it was b.s. that the odds should be that high in his favor. Trinidad was a killer though BUT was as easily as DLH was able to outbox him in their fight, you should know that Hopkins could too. It was a masterful performance, the first fight I actually bought on DVD ever and I've watched it time and again. But there were still a lot of people picking Trinidad over Winky when to me it was obvious he would beat Tito. I never bet and bet money on that fight, it was a style matchup. Either way, I tip my cap to Hopkins because it was a great performance but Tito probably would've lost more at Middleweight eventually. People treat him like he was a lifetime middleweight. He only had a few fights there, including the easy fight after Bhop, the Mayorga fight and Winky. The sample size was small to know if he would've fared well at the weight. He really only had a few fights at 154 even. Maybe he couldn't take a punch that well at the weight? Who knows? Again, it was a great performance by Hopkins but what I was saying is, maybe it's a bit overstated?
Vargas was done by the time he fought DLH. You talk about Hopkins stealing fighters souls? Tito RUINED Vargas. Vargas was 22 years old at that time. In his prime physically, but he was never the same after fighting Tito, he was knocked down 5 times including knocked out hard in that fight.
Shane was definitely in the midst of a major slump and wasn't the same fighter. He obviously had a bit of a career renaissance later in his career but during this stretch he was 0-5 with 1 NC. Even though Vargas was ruined already, he still struggled with a 1-eyed Vargas even a couple years later. Shane didn't look great again til fighting Cotto (at least to me) but still lost.
Kelly Pavlik was a plodding fighter as we well know and had to plant his feet to punch. BHOP is very good at selecting fighters he can beat and a reason why he would never fight Ward (if he does, it's for the money). That's why I was really surprised he even fought Dawson and props for taking on those fights and Calzaghe. I'll admit that I was on the fence about picking a winner for that fight because obviously Pavlik was undefeated going into it, but I told my ex-wife the Friday before the fight that I'd realized how Pavlik could be beaten because of his weak footwork, circling away from the right hand would work and causing Kelly to stop coming straight forward because he's a downhill fighter. If I can figure it out, that should be easy for someone like Hopkins, and it was. Who gives a crap what sports writers say? Most of those dudes couldn't throw an educated punch and when they are wrong, they just move on to the next fight like nothing happened. Yes, they were the same size, but how many fighters dominate at a lower weight then move up 1 weightclass and don't fare well? (Ricky Hatton for instance) Kelly moved up 10 lbs, or 6 I guess you could argue after the catchweight fight with Taylor. He's not even a SMW fighter, that's why everyone said he should stay at MW. No one gave him a chance against any of the Super Six fighters really.
I'll type more later, my laptop is about to die. I could be wrong on a few minor facts by the way, I was working off of memory when typing this
Odds mean nothing on a fight after the fact, those are stoked by people betting on a particular fighter. Bhop hardly had any fans at that time, Trinidad had a HUGE fan base and was a superstar in the fight. Pacquiao was also like a 4:1 favorite over Marquez in the 3rd fight, so what? Anyone who really knew boxing knew that it was b.s. that the odds should be that high in his favor. Trinidad was a killer though BUT was as easily as DLH was able to outbox him in their fight, you should know that Hopkins could too. It was a masterful performance, the first fight I actually bought on DVD ever and I've watched it time and again. But there were still a lot of people picking Trinidad over Winky when to me it was obvious he would beat Tito. I never bet and bet money on that fight, it was a style matchup. Either way, I tip my cap to Hopkins because it was a great performance but Tito probably would've lost more at Middleweight eventually. People treat him like he was a lifetime middleweight. He only had a few fights there, including the easy fight after Bhop, the Mayorga fight and Winky. The sample size was small to know if he would've fared well at the weight. He really only had a few fights at 154 even. Maybe he couldn't take a punch that well at the weight? Who knows? Again, it was a great performance by Hopkins but what I was saying is, maybe it's a bit overstated?
Vargas was done by the time he fought DLH. You talk about Hopkins stealing fighters souls? Tito RUINED Vargas. Vargas was 22 years old at that time. In his prime physically, but he was never the same after fighting Tito, he was knocked down 5 times including knocked out hard in that fight.
Shane was definitely in the midst of a major slump and wasn't the same fighter. He obviously had a bit of a career renaissance later in his career but during this stretch he was 0-5 with 1 NC. Even though Vargas was ruined already, he still struggled with a 1-eyed Vargas even a couple years later. Shane didn't look great again til fighting Cotto (at least to me) but still lost.
Kelly Pavlik was a plodding fighter as we well know and had to plant his feet to punch. BHOP is very good at selecting fighters he can beat and a reason why he would never fight Ward (if he does, it's for the money). That's why I was really surprised he even fought Dawson and props for taking on those fights and Calzaghe. I'll admit that I was on the fence about picking a winner for that fight because obviously Pavlik was undefeated going into it, but I told my ex-wife the Friday before the fight that I'd realized how Pavlik could be beaten because of his weak footwork, circling away from the right hand would work and causing Kelly to stop coming straight forward because he's a downhill fighter. If I can figure it out, that should be easy for someone like Hopkins, and it was. Who gives a crap what sports writers say? Most of those dudes couldn't throw an educated punch and when they are wrong, they just move on to the next fight like nothing happened. Yes, they were the same size, but how many fighters dominate at a lower weight then move up 1 weightclass and don't fare well? (Ricky Hatton for instance) Kelly moved up 10 lbs, or 6 I guess you could argue after the catchweight fight with Taylor. He's not even a SMW fighter, that's why everyone said he should stay at MW. No one gave him a chance against any of the Super Six fighters really.
I'll type more later, my laptop is about to die. I could be wrong on a few minor facts by the way, I was working off of memory when typing this
Pavlik weighed 180 pounds when he fought Martinez. This shows how hard it was for him to make 160. Let us not forget that Hopkins himself was a MW for 15 years or more. Size was not a factor in the least bit against Pavlik. Hopkins hasn't had power in many years. He didn't beat Pavlik because he was big and powerful, he beat him with speed, movement and footwork. Completely confused the shit out of Kelly. Ruined him mentally. Hopkins wasn't lying about ruining young guys careers.
And it wasn't just writers picking Pavlik (which btw I'm referring to lifelong boxing experts such as the rings panel of writers at the time and current and former boxers ) it was the public in general. The blogs, the forums, etc. There was a legit consensus that Hopkins would lose and likely KOd.
Trinidad is obviously a great win. If Hopkins wasn't a MW, there is no doubt that Trinidad would have been the unified champ. No question about it. Sure, maybe a couple years later if he stayed at 160 he would have lost to Winky due to clash of styles, but at that time he would have been king of 160. The idea was to set up Tito vs Roy Jones after he took care of Hopkins.
As for Mosley, the only guys he lost to is when he went up to 154 which was just too big for him. Forrest and Winky. Bad match ups for shane.
Anyways, like I said Oscar was not Hopkins great win it was his money fight, just like Oscar was for Floyd and Manny years later.
I don't know about this talk of Hopkins "selecting" opponents, he's fought every kind of style there is to fight. Hell he even tried to fight David Haye a couple years ago. Look at the names I listed on his resume. This is what separates Hopkins from Mayweather, etc. He takes challenges, he takes risks. Win or lose its about legacy to Hopkins, its about breaking records and accomplishing things never before. There isn't a fighter out there today that has a resume like Hopkins. Certainly not Floyd (best win Diego Corrales!), not Pacquiao. Roy Jones comes close mainly because he beat a young Hopkins and James Toney. If Holyfield isn't retired than he's the only active fighter with a better resume (im pretty sure he's retired ). So what are we doing here then? Nitpicking? Cuz no one else compares.
And it wasn't just writers picking Pavlik (which btw I'm referring to lifelong boxing experts such as the rings panel of writers at the time and current and former boxers ) it was the public in general. The blogs, the forums, etc. There was a legit consensus that Hopkins would lose and likely KOd.
Trinidad is obviously a great win. If Hopkins wasn't a MW, there is no doubt that Trinidad would have been the unified champ. No question about it. Sure, maybe a couple years later if he stayed at 160 he would have lost to Winky due to clash of styles, but at that time he would have been king of 160. The idea was to set up Tito vs Roy Jones after he took care of Hopkins.
As for Mosley, the only guys he lost to is when he went up to 154 which was just too big for him. Forrest and Winky. Bad match ups for shane.
Anyways, like I said Oscar was not Hopkins great win it was his money fight, just like Oscar was for Floyd and Manny years later.
I don't know about this talk of Hopkins "selecting" opponents, he's fought every kind of style there is to fight. Hell he even tried to fight David Haye a couple years ago. Look at the names I listed on his resume. This is what separates Hopkins from Mayweather, etc. He takes challenges, he takes risks. Win or lose its about legacy to Hopkins, its about breaking records and accomplishing things never before. There isn't a fighter out there today that has a resume like Hopkins. Certainly not Floyd (best win Diego Corrales!), not Pacquiao. Roy Jones comes close mainly because he beat a young Hopkins and James Toney. If Holyfield isn't retired than he's the only active fighter with a better resume (im pretty sure he's retired ). So what are we doing here then? Nitpicking? Cuz no one else compares.
Pacquiao might be the only one but its close. Bererra, Marquez and Morales is pretty damn impressive. But I still feel overall Hopkins fought the tougher opponents.
Also to me, jumping up divisions and winning titles isn't everything, unifying all of the belts in a single weight class one by one and defending them is equally as impressive if not more in many cases.
Hopkins is the only guy mentioned here that did that.
Anyways, at the end of the day Hopkins either has the best active resume or its 1a and 1b.
Also to me, jumping up divisions and winning titles isn't everything, unifying all of the belts in a single weight class one by one and defending them is equally as impressive if not more in many cases.
Hopkins is the only guy mentioned here that did that.
Anyways, at the end of the day Hopkins either has the best active resume or its 1a and 1b.
I've always said that Pac has as much of a resume that can be nitpicked as anyone, but he has 7 hall of famers on his resume, maybe one more. That's a grip of hall of famer's to beat in a career, forget the 8 division titles. If Hopkins gets credit for talking about fighting Haye, Pac definitely deserves credit for beating the piss out of Margarito.
as far as unifying titles, we've talked about that. It's getting harder and harder these days for sure to unify because of sanctioning body b.s., unrealistic demands for mandatories etc... but it is pretty legit that Bhop did so. I was really hoping that Martinez would. He should actually have like 3 of the belts but Pavlik lost them from sanctioning nonsense.
Props:
2-0-Sixx
well no wait a second if you're going to say Oscar was on the decline when Hopkins beat him, then mention Pacquiao's "7 hall of famers" without going into the details about those guys well that's a contradiction. If Oscar was on the decline when Hopkins beat him then he was a dead man when Pac beat him. Same goes for Shane Mosley.
So if you're going to nitpick that you gotta be fair. Clearly Mosley & Oscar were shot. Even when Floyd fought Oscar he was coming off a two year retirement after Hopkins knocked him out, then he fought a quick fight with Mayorga and fought Floyd (see that's what Hopkins does: Oscar retired for a while, Trinidad retired for a while, Pavlik turned to booze eventually retired, Joe Lipsey retired, Mercado was ruined, Winky goes in hiding for 1-2 years, Tarver done, Echols done, Pacal goes away for a year and a half, etc).
As for unifying, that's a new thing as of one year ago with the WBC not alloying unification bouts (well they do sometimes $$$). But what I was saying is moving up a weight class, beat a weak link, then move up again. Like for example, Pac's title against David Diaz & Margarito were pretty weak. I'm much more impressed with Pac's lineal titles (four I think?) then 7-8 division weight classes. Another example is just because a guy goes up in weight and beats top guys doesn't automatically make them better than a guy that stays in one division his entire career. Marvin Hagler for example. Should he get put down lower on the ATG list because he never moved up to 175? Nah, of course not.
Also, the other thing about Hopkins unifying the belts. He collected them all one by one. Meaning he didn't beat a guy that already had two of them or whatever. He fought every title holder and beat them and collected all the belts.
That's why I love this picture:
All those belts are middleweight belts by beating each guy that held it. Truly unified. Rarely happens that way in history. Prime Mike Tyson did for example. It's impressive.
So if you're going to nitpick that you gotta be fair. Clearly Mosley & Oscar were shot. Even when Floyd fought Oscar he was coming off a two year retirement after Hopkins knocked him out, then he fought a quick fight with Mayorga and fought Floyd (see that's what Hopkins does: Oscar retired for a while, Trinidad retired for a while, Pavlik turned to booze eventually retired, Joe Lipsey retired, Mercado was ruined, Winky goes in hiding for 1-2 years, Tarver done, Echols done, Pacal goes away for a year and a half, etc).
As for unifying, that's a new thing as of one year ago with the WBC not alloying unification bouts (well they do sometimes $$$). But what I was saying is moving up a weight class, beat a weak link, then move up again. Like for example, Pac's title against David Diaz & Margarito were pretty weak. I'm much more impressed with Pac's lineal titles (four I think?) then 7-8 division weight classes. Another example is just because a guy goes up in weight and beats top guys doesn't automatically make them better than a guy that stays in one division his entire career. Marvin Hagler for example. Should he get put down lower on the ATG list because he never moved up to 175? Nah, of course not.
Also, the other thing about Hopkins unifying the belts. He collected them all one by one. Meaning he didn't beat a guy that already had two of them or whatever. He fought every title holder and beat them and collected all the belts.
That's why I love this picture:
All those belts are middleweight belts by beating each guy that held it. Truly unified. Rarely happens that way in history. Prime Mike Tyson did for example. It's impressive.
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the WBC took away Martinez' belt so they could basically give it for free to Chavez. That was a load of crock. But even then, Martinez hasn't expressed interest in unifying all the belts. He didn't want to fight Dmitry Pirog for his belt when he had it (which he lost recently due to inactivity/injuries), hasn't wanted to fight Golovkin or Kid Chocolate for their belts either. Which is sad to me because those would all be such great fights.
Of course they were shot, but either way, to have that many on your resume in any capacity is impressive no matter how you slice it. Even if you take Mosley and DLH off, that's still 5. That's a grip!
Oscar had only been a part time fighter at that point anyways. He had pretty lengthy periods of inactivity. He had a really long period off before the vargas fight and had several stints of over a year of inactivity. He was probably too busy with fishnets or something. Winky is the dumbest business man ever. I think he's just stupid, I don't give BHOP credit for that. Allegedly, Tito tried time and time again for a BHOP rematch and couldn't get it so he took time off. Much like Hagler who was upset with the Leonard situation. He obviously came back later for a little bit. He did that again to fight Jones after retiring a 2nd time. Calzaghe had been talking about retirement. He beat the 2 guys he wanted to fight and said time and again he didn't want to fight the younger guns at 175. I think mentally he was done with the game, maybe I'm wrong. He wanted a couple money fights and he was out. Not to mention, he beat Bhop, like it or not.
Oscar had only been a part time fighter at that point anyways. He had pretty lengthy periods of inactivity. He had a really long period off before the vargas fight and had several stints of over a year of inactivity. He was probably too busy with fishnets or something. Winky is the dumbest business man ever. I think he's just stupid, I don't give BHOP credit for that. Allegedly, Tito tried time and time again for a BHOP rematch and couldn't get it so he took time off. Much like Hagler who was upset with the Leonard situation. He obviously came back later for a little bit. He did that again to fight Jones after retiring a 2nd time. Calzaghe had been talking about retirement. He beat the 2 guys he wanted to fight and said time and again he didn't want to fight the younger guns at 175. I think mentally he was done with the game, maybe I'm wrong. He wanted a couple money fights and he was out. Not to mention, he beat Bhop, like it or not.