Quote Originally Posted by LobowolfXXX View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Gandalf View Post
Who did Hopkins beat at MW to prove his greatness?

His biggest wins were small men moving up. DLH who had really already lost to Sturm and Trinidad who spent most of his career at WW.

Then after Hopkins moves up you have loads more men being called up way beyond their optimum fighting weights.

Hopkins wins over Trinidad and Tarver were significant, but no more significant than Calzaghe beating Lacy, Kessler and Hopkins himself.
Hopkins's win over Trinidad was substantially more significant than Calzaghe's wins over Lacy and Kessler. Trinidad was an undefeated, top P4P fighter, and Hopkins destroyed him. In terms of significance of the opposition, of the three wins you listed, only Calzaghe's win over Hopkins is comparable.

At middleweight, most of Hopkins's defense were against top-10 fighters in the weight class. They weren't "greats," but on balance, they were probably more credible than most of the people Calzaghe defended against.
They were big wins and huge fights in the division. P4P is mythical anyway and saying one is bigger than the other is entirely subjective. Lacy was undefeated and so was Kessler. They were huge fights and extremely significant. Calzaghe unified his division and then went up and beat 'the man' fair and square.

It is wrong to discredit Kessler and say that he is not comparable to Hopkins. He was undefeated and coming in off of a string of very decent performances. Many tipped him to beat Calzaghe.

Both fighters have what you would call decent resumes. Hopkins added a few more late on with calculated CW's, but calculated up to the age of 36 they are both relatively even.

I credit Calzaghe for what he did and also acknowledge what Hopkins has done, but some are unable to give Calzaghe any credit and call him a 'ducker'. He proved himself, you can't say the same for someone like Ottke.