Originally Posted by
Taeth
Vs none of there than Bernard Hopkins.
Before you say I am totally nuts hear me out
Look at the triangle that was Hopkins, Jermain Taylor, and Pavlik
1.Taylor gave Hopkins all sorts of troubles because he didn't rush forward, he used his youth, speed, and reflexes and just allowed himself to react to what Hopkins did which threw Hopkins off and gave him fits.
2. I will discard their first fight because Jermain Taylor punched himself out in it, but in their second fight Pavlik used high output, and pressure which is the achilles heal of Jermain Taylor, he isn't good at fighting, I also thought Winky Wright beat him soundly with the same approach, but people had Jermain landing punches I definitely didn't.
3. Hopkins nullified a lot of what Winky, and beat him in a close fight, but the more important thing is he took Pavlik to school, he out boxed him, out fought him, out everything Pavlik.
The point I am making is styles can make fights, guys who seem even on paper in many ways going into a fight actually in some cases turned into landslides one way or another.
I think Calzaghe was the worst style regardless of what shape Roy was in for him to face, Its obvious the thing that has fallen the most for him is output. While Bernard is so elusive and sneaky he could deal with Calzaghe's huge output much more effectively, while Roy was kept on the ropes, but once again Calzaghe didn't land a whole lot of clean punches except when Roy had his hands down and he backed into the ropes. I also saw Roy's speed the few times he punched like in the 5th round, he was able to land effectively on Calzaghe, arguably easier than Bernard.
The point I am making is Bernard can throw a lot of punches if you come at him, and he isn't forced into complete defensive mode, I think Calzaghe and Jermain Taylor were too quick for him to counter consistently the whole night, but Kelly was slower and I think Hopkins was able to see the punches coming.
I still think unless Bernard can pull massive amount of punches out of his belt that Roy is a bad matchup for him if Roy doesn't get backed up the whole fight. I think this would be a boring fight for most, but it would be a close fight.
Why was Jermain Taylor as effective against Bernard as Calzaghe if not more so? Because that explosive speed is what really screws up Bernard, because it doesn't rely on a tempo like Calzaghe does. Roy Jones Jr isn't a rhythmic type fighter, he fights in spurts like Bernard does, he also attempts to disrupt his opponent's rhythm, and I think they offset eachother to a large degree, I want to see this fight made, but I doubt Hopkins would take it now... a pity.
Bookmarks