Regarding your comments on Hopkins best performances only being over "smaller" men you must not of seen his fights against Glen Johnson, Antonio Tarver, etc.

Lets just ignore the fact that two of those fighters (Tito, Pavlik) that were so "small" were heavily favored to beat him and were supposed to knock him out.

The De La Hoya fight was at a catchweight of 156 for Hopkins 160 pound title but Hopkins was willing to drop down an extra 4 pounds where De La Hoya only had to go up 2 pounds being that he was a natural Junior Middleweight at that point.