Comparing Floyd and Bhop's opposition

[El Kabong]

Steve Frank
Joe Lipsey
William Bo James
John David Jackson
Glenn Johnson
Andrew Council
Robert Allen
Robert Allen
Antwun Echols
Syd Vanderpool
Antwun Echols
Keith Holmes
Felix Trinidad
Carl Daniels
Morrade Hakkar
William Joppy
Robert Allen
Oscar De la Hoya
Howard Eastman

Those are the guys Hopkins defended his title against successfully and while there ARE some good names out there a lot of those names came from 154 and they were not "true middleweights" and that's where a lot of the criticism of Hopkins comes from. There were certainly threats to Hopkins at 168, but it isn't required that a fighter move up if he can run a division.

Floyd on the other hand has done the exact opposite he never stayed put in 1 division for long. He moved fight to fight and took on some interesting (and some not so interesting) fighters.


The crux of the argument is "What is ducking fighters" and "What is domination"? Is it moving division to division or is it staying put? Is it taking on the best of boxing in general or the best of your division? I personally think Floyd could have taken the Hopkins route but would have gotten bored with the monotony of the same stagnant division. I think BHop could have jumped division to division and had great success as well, but I believe he liked the consistency of middleweight and hell he had a formula that worked, give up about 4 rounds, warm up, and close the show with purpose (not typically a KO, but dominate at the end).

[Beanflicker]

The crux of the argument is "What is ducking fighters" and "What is domination"? Is it moving division to division or is it staying put? Is it taking on the best of boxing in general or the best of your division? I personally think Floyd could have taken the Hopkins route but would have gotten bored with the monotony of the same stagnant division. I think BHop could have jumped division to division and had great success as well, but I believe he liked the consistency of middleweight and hell he had a formula that worked, give up about 4 rounds, warm up, and close the show with purpose (not typically a KO, but dominate at the end).

It's a good question. I admire both. I admire Hopkins for his consistency and discipline to stay at the same weight, but I also admire guys like Floyd, Pac, SRR, Roy Jones, ect ect who transcended weight divisions and titles.

[IamInuit]

El the middleweight division stopped being the division it was when boxing went from 8 to 17 and no other middleweight after the expansion had any tougher era and all of them fought x welters.

It just kills me to no end that here we have a guy in Hopkins that is nothing short o a modern day Archie Moore and all people can do is belittle him. In fact its not just him. People spend their entire days on forums shitting on these guys. Every fighter Floyd has faced has been spat and shit on as guys with no chance and then when he's beaten them they become some incredible opponent.

[El Kabong]

El the middleweight division stopped being the division it was when boxing went from 8 to 17 and no other middleweight after the expansion had any tougher era and all of them fought x welters.

It just kills me to no end that here we have a guy in Hopkins that is nothing short o a modern day Archie Moore and all people can do is belittle him. In fact its not just him. People spend their entire days on forums shitting on these guys. Every fighter Floyd has faced has been spat and shit on as guys with no chance and then when he's beaten them they become some incredible opponent.

Absolutely agree man! Floyd has ALWAYS wanted things both ways Pre-fight:"This guy isn't in my league" Post fight: "That guy was a great boxer and I demolished him, praise me!" .....Floyd's lack of humility has indeed hurt how people view him. I think Floyd wanted to be the welterweight version of Ali, always bragging, adored, and despised, loved, and hated, cult of personality, etc.

Bernard Hopkins was very much a blue collar kind of champion. Sure he had his theater with his masks and all that mess, but at the end of the day he was a cagey fighter who defended his title time and time again like clockwork but got little praise and little media buzz for what he did. Maybe it's due to his style being more cagey than flashy, maybe it's because he's not a pretty guy, maybe it's because he's an ex-con, or maybe it's because other peers of Hopkins were stealing his spotlight ie RJJ & James Toney....Mayweather Jr. didn't have to deal with that all that much as he was never the PEER of Mosley or De la Hoya, but more the Next Generation Star. also Floyd comes from a boxing family, had amateur successes, and was groomed by HBO to be that "Next Big Thing" (no disrespect to Floyd because he has after all backed up everything he's said), Hopkins earned everything he ever achieved in the business.

[Rantcatrat]

Who faced the tougher opposition?

There's a good argument Hopkins did, but he also lost.

Who'd they miss? Who should Hopkins have faced and didn't? Same for Floyd.

I would argue Floyd's best wins are Corrales and De La Hoya. I think?

I'm less impressed by Floyd's recent opponents, considering his contemporaries faced tougher opposition. For example, Cotto faced Pacquiao, Margarito, Trout and Martinez, and at least Pacquiao was in his prime, and Mayweather didn't face any of them.

Hopkins' recent opponents, Calzaghe, Dawson, Pascal, and Kovalev are probably better than any of Floyd's in that time period, although, once again, Hopkins lost.

[Spicoli]

Why the fuck is preferring one over the other hating? Can anyone with a straight face and stable mind deny Mayweathers ability and skill? Personally I place Hopkins a notch above Mayweather when it comes to all time or 'great' based on opposition faced, career longevity and adaptability, style(s) and on a side note he did it all with no one setting the table for him and from the bottom up.

[Master]

The gap is not as big as I thought it would be as I thought Floyd was better as he has dominated more weight divisions that B Hop. However Hopkins opponents at the weight are more challenging.

[Beanflicker]

adaptability, style(s)

Please please please explain to me how Hopkins beats Floyd in adaptability?

[Beanflicker]

Hopkins pulled off a lot more big upsets than Floyd, but to be fair Floyd has hardly ever (if ever) been an underdog.

Someone explain to me also how going up in weight and dominating Tarver is any better than going up in weight and beating Canelo Alvarez?

Tarver was a solid fighter and the #1 at LHW at the time for sure, but he had 3 losses on his record and had been beaten by Glen Johnson just a few fights previous.

Canelo was the #1 at his division too. Young, undefeated and has gone on to regain the #1 spot in his division now that Floyd has dropped back to WW.

Someone explain to me how the Tarver win is a much higher quality win, because I don't get it.

[Master]

Hopkins pulled off a lot more big upsets than Floyd, but to be fair Floyd has hardly ever (if ever) been an underdog.

Someone explain to me also how going up in weight and dominating Tarver is any better than going up in weight and beating Canelo Alvarez?

Tarver was a solid fighter and the #1 at LHW at the time for sure, but he had 3 losses on his record and had been beaten by Glen Johnson just a few fights previous.

Canelo was the #1 at his division too. Young, undefeated and has gone on to regain the #1 spot in his division now that Floyd has dropped back to WW.

Someone explain to me how the Tarver win is a much higher quality win, because I don't get it.

Beating Canelo is a great victory, very under rated.

[Spicoli]

Hopkins pulled off a lot more big upsets than Floyd, but to be fair Floyd has hardly ever (if ever) been an underdog.

Someone explain to me also how going up in weight and dominating Tarver is any better than going up in weight and beating Canelo Alvarez?

Tarver was a solid fighter and the #1 at LHW at the time for sure, but he had 3 losses on his record and had been beaten by Glen Johnson just a few fights previous.

Canelo was the #1 at his division too. Young, undefeated and has gone on to regain the #1 spot in his division now that Floyd has dropped back to WW.

Someone explain to me how the Tarver win is a much higher quality win, because I don't get it.

In fairness Tarver could say he had knocked out and beaten a great. As well the weight jump was a little bit more significant as opposed to some 1,2 lb catch weight carnival. Alvarez was a quality fight and match and scalp for Mayweather but he hadn't been in the deep end on a large scale.

[Beanflicker]

It's the same story every time, people make these statements, and when you ask them to justify their opinion they get all defensive and start screaming about "oohhh I guess no one can disagree with anyone here" and "ooohh I guess I nobody can criticize Floyd."

What ever happened to actually having logic to back an opinion or idea? Sheesh

[Spicoli]

adaptability, style(s)

Please please please explain to me how Hopkins beats Floyd in adaptability?

His entire career was adaptability, literally from very early search and destroy to retooling his approach to the far too often broad brush and dismissal of the defensive sniper stuff he does. Yeh, sometimes it's ugly, but it's also gritty, cagey and full of guile you don't just learn overnight. Both fighters regardless of fandom can be very hunt and peck.

[Beanflicker]

[QUOTE=Spicoli;1280370]

His entire career was adaptability, literally from very early search and destroy to retooling his approach to the far too often broad brush and dismissal of the defensive sniper stuff he does. Yeh, sometimes it's ugly, but it's also gritty, cagey and full of guile you don't just learn overnight. Both fighters regardless of fandom can be very hunt and peck.

Bhop adopted for sure, but can we say he was more adaptive than Floyd? Whenever Bhop ran into a tough style for him, he seemed to lose. He never made the adjustments to Jermain Taylor to find a way to win. He even had a second chance, and again could not adapt. He couldn't adapt to Cazlaghe, Dawson, or Kovalev. He kept doing the same thing.

Floyd has consistently made adjustments and gotten stronger as the fight progressed. We saw it with Mosley. With Castillo, who arguably should have won the first fight, he adjusted and dominated the rematch. With Oscar, he adjusted and controlled the mid and later parts of the fight. He took over the mid and later rounds vs Maidana and dominated the rematch.

Floyd has been adapting his style seamlessly into his advanced age, as his legs have started to go we've seen him start working smarter to compensate.

[powerpuncher]

Again, we can nitpick all we want but I say that the only fighter that bhop faced that was clearly better than any of Floyd's opponents was Jones. I thnk that the rest aren't that different. For example, I don't think the calzaghe fight is any better or worse than Floyd's fight with Oscar. Or I don't think Floyd's fight with canelo is any better than bhops win over pavlik.

Like I said before, I believe that Bhop gets a lot of credit for certain wins because he was old rather than his opponent being great. For example, if he were younger and got a draw against Pascal, it would have been seen as Bhop failing. So he has been in a win win situation for the past 10 years because when he wins its incredible because he's so old but when he loses its alright because he's old.

Basically, longevity helps your case but I feel that Floyd is enough above Bhop in boxing ability that longevity alone doesn't push him past him. I think that Bhop utililzed his talents more efficiently than Floyd but Floyd's talent level was just too high to catch him on greatness. I think that Bhop is a top 5 fighter from the last 2 decades but Floyd is #1 and there's no shame in saying that Floyd is better than you.