Y'all must o' forgot...

[intoccabile]

Of course he is. I am a big fan of Calzaghe, he is an all time great.

But I honestly believe that RJJ in his prime was about the the third or fourth best fighter ever. SRR, Ali and Louis are better IMO.

HOWEVER, we'll never know that for sure because he should have been more proactive in securing legacy defining fights when he was in his prime.

I think Roy beats a lot of the top guys inthe p4p argument if they fought against eachother, but He didn't fight the type of names some of these guys did. I think if you are comparing primes he is a top 10 p4p, but being a great fighter means more than that. After this fight I definitely have Hopkins moving ahead of Roy on the p4p ATG list.

I must disagree Taeth.

For a start, Jones has a win over Hopkins.

Second, Jones won belts at 160, 168, 175 and heavyweight. B-Hop never did that.

Third, a lot of Hopkins biggest wins were against guys he had distinct size and weight advantages over (DLH, Winky, Pavlik). Lets not forget that at light heavyweight his resume consists of a shot Tarver and a bunch of guys moving up.

No, B-Hop is a great fighter, but Roy is greater IMO.

I disagree here.
Styles make fights, for one.
You can't use a fighters loss against someone against them.
Hopkins would defeat more opposition/styles than Jones would.
That, imo, makes him p4p the better fighter. Just because roy had to style
to beat hopkins doesn't mean he's suddenly better because he holds a victory over him.


If 1 beats 3 - 10. But loses to 2, and 2 loses to 4, 5 and 6, who 1 beat.
Then who is the better fighter? No question, 1 is.

Also. Let's keep in mind hopkins was still perfecting his craft when he fought Roy. Since then Hopkins had gotten better and better with each fight, which would possibly indicate he wasn't quite primed yet? While Roy didn't get any better, just began moving up in weights.

Just my thoughts on the whole " Roy beat hopkins, he has to be better ATG ranked ".

Now.. One of the reasons Hopkins imo goes down better ranked than Roy is because other than his jones fight you can argue that hopkins has never been beaten. Hes also never been so much as scratched. His incredible title reign, number of defenses, and the level that he fights at at such an old age. These are all enormous feats and imo hold equal weight to roys accomplishments.

We see how great hopkins is at 175. Now that Roy lost his next and final fight may be at Heavyweight. People can easily argue that Hopkins could have gone up in weight classes and won the straps too, just like roy did. It's a very good arguement too considering how beautifuly he's made the transition to the new weight at such an old age.. so no question he could have done it then aswell.. but was intent on making history in the midweight division and not moving up in weight classes.

There are so many variables to these guys careers, we could argue forever.
imo, it's Roys prime skill, multi-weight championships that make him great.
Versus Hopkins resume, Midweight accomplishments, and level of comp at an old age.

People will always argue that hopkins was bigger than his best wins.
But atleast with hopkins, unlike roy, we don't have to look at his prime and rank him
based on what he did years ago. With hopkins, we can judge him by his past AND his present. Because the man is STILL great.

Roy has a great past. Hopkins has a great past, present, and maybe even future if he's
serious about the move to heavyweight.

Roy is done.. he's gotten all of his badges and achievements out of the way.
Hopkins is actually still going strong. If he hasn't surpassed Roy in ATG rank already,
then he will.

[JT Rock]

I think Roy beats a lot of the top guys inthe p4p argument if they fought against eachother, but He didn't fight the type of names some of these guys did. I think if you are comparing primes he is a top 10 p4p, but being a great fighter means more than that. After this fight I definitely have Hopkins moving ahead of Roy on the p4p ATG list.

I must disagree Taeth.

For a start, Jones has a win over Hopkins.

Second, Jones won belts at 160, 168, 175 and heavyweight. B-Hop never did that.

Third, a lot of Hopkins biggest wins were against guys he had distinct size and weight advantages over (DLH, Winky, Pavlik). Lets not forget that at light heavyweight his resume consists of a shot Tarver and a bunch of guys moving up.

No, B-Hop is a great fighter, but Roy is greater IMO.

I disagree here.
Styles make fights, for one.
You can't use a fighters loss against someone against them.
Hopkins would defeat more opposition/styles than Jones would.
That, imo, makes him p4p the better fighter. Just because roy had to style
to beat hopkins doesn't mean he's suddenly better because he holds a victory over him.


If 1 beats 3 - 10. But loses to 2, and 2 loses to 4, 5 and 6, who 1 beat.
Then who is the better fighter? No question, 1 is.

Also. Let's keep in mind hopkins was still perfecting his craft when he fought Roy. Since then Hopkins had gotten better and better with each fight, which would possibly indicate he wasn't quite primed yet? While Roy didn't get any better, just began moving up in weights.

Just my thoughts on the whole " Roy beat hopkins, he has to be better ATG ranked ".

Now.. One of the reasons Hopkins imo goes down better ranked than Roy is because other than his jones fight you can argue that hopkins has never been beaten. Hes also never been so much as scratched. His incredible title reign, number of defenses, and the level that he fights at at such an old age. These are all enormous feats and imo hold equal weight to roys accomplishments.

We see how great hopkins is at 175. Now that Roy lost his next and final fight may be at Heavyweight. People can easily argue that Hopkins could have gone up in weight classes and won the straps too, just like roy did. It's a very good arguement too considering how beautifuly he's made the transition to the new weight at such an old age.. so no question he could have done it then aswell.. but was intent on making history in the midweight division and not moving up in weight classes.

There are so many variables to these guys careers, we could argue forever.
imo, it's Roys prime skill, multi-weight championships that make him great.
Versus Hopkins resume, Midweight accomplishments, and level of comp at an old age.

People will always argue that hopkins was bigger than his best wins.
But atleast with hopkins, unlike roy, we don't have to look at his prime and rank him
based on what he did years ago. With hopkins, we can judge him by his past AND his present. Because the man is STILL great.

Roy has a great past. Hopkins has a great past, present, and maybe even future if he's
serious about the move to heavyweight.

Roy is done.. he's gotten all of his badges and achievements out of the way.
Hopkins is actually still going strong. If he hasn't surpassed Roy in ATG rank already,
then he will.

But as stated before 95% of Nards important wins are over smaller guys moving up in weight and in the middle of all that he had his fair share of Tomato cans mixed into, I say nard will always be one step below Roy in the ATG department.. I believe that James Toney would beat Hopkins, he is on par defensively works harder in a fight and counters beautifully and would have matched him and strength..Perfect style to beat Hopkins

Even Tarver for example, there is a stark contrast in the Tarver that fought Jones and the one that fought Hopkins, Tarver was much slower, pushing his punches etc... No one made a big deal out of that fight other than what Hopkins did because everyone hates Tarver, but it was apparent that Tarver was slipping bad too

[intoccabile]

I must disagree Taeth.

For a start, Jones has a win over Hopkins.

Second, Jones won belts at 160, 168, 175 and heavyweight. B-Hop never did that.

Third, a lot of Hopkins biggest wins were against guys he had distinct size and weight advantages over (DLH, Winky, Pavlik). Lets not forget that at light heavyweight his resume consists of a shot Tarver and a bunch of guys moving up.

No, B-Hop is a great fighter, but Roy is greater IMO.

I disagree here.
Styles make fights, for one.
You can't use a fighters loss against someone against them.
Hopkins would defeat more opposition/styles than Jones would.
That, imo, makes him p4p the better fighter. Just because roy had to style
to beat hopkins doesn't mean he's suddenly better because he holds a victory over him.


If 1 beats 3 - 10. But loses to 2, and 2 loses to 4, 5 and 6, who 1 beat.
Then who is the better fighter? No question, 1 is.

Also. Let's keep in mind hopkins was still perfecting his craft when he fought Roy. Since then Hopkins had gotten better and better with each fight, which would possibly indicate he wasn't quite primed yet? While Roy didn't get any better, just began moving up in weights.

Just my thoughts on the whole " Roy beat hopkins, he has to be better ATG ranked ".

Now.. One of the reasons Hopkins imo goes down better ranked than Roy is because other than his jones fight you can argue that hopkins has never been beaten. Hes also never been so much as scratched. His incredible title reign, number of defenses, and the level that he fights at at such an old age. These are all enormous feats and imo hold equal weight to roys accomplishments.

We see how great hopkins is at 175. Now that Roy lost his next and final fight may be at Heavyweight. People can easily argue that Hopkins could have gone up in weight classes and won the straps too, just like roy did. It's a very good arguement too considering how beautifuly he's made the transition to the new weight at such an old age.. so no question he could have done it then aswell.. but was intent on making history in the midweight division and not moving up in weight classes.

There are so many variables to these guys careers, we could argue forever.
imo, it's Roys prime skill, multi-weight championships that make him great.
Versus Hopkins resume, Midweight accomplishments, and level of comp at an old age.

People will always argue that hopkins was bigger than his best wins.
But atleast with hopkins, unlike roy, we don't have to look at his prime and rank him
based on what he did years ago. With hopkins, we can judge him by his past AND his present. Because the man is STILL great.

Roy has a great past. Hopkins has a great past, present, and maybe even future if he's
serious about the move to heavyweight.

Roy is done.. he's gotten all of his badges and achievements out of the way.
Hopkins is actually still going strong. If he hasn't surpassed Roy in ATG rank already,
then he will.

But as stated before 95% of Nards important wins are over smaller guys moving up in weight and in the middle of all that he had his fair share of Tomato cans mixed into, I say nard will always be one step below Roy in the ATG department.. I believe that James Toney would beat Hopkins, he is on par defensively works harder in a fight and counters beautifully and would have matched him and strength..Perfect style to beat Hopkins

Even Tarver for example, there is a stark contrast in the Tarver that fought Jones and the one that fought Hopkins, Tarver was much slower, pushing his punches etc... No one made a big deal out of that fight other than what Hopkins did because everyone hates Tarver, but it was apparent that Tarver was slipping bad too

There's also a start contrast to the Winky that fought Taylor and the Winky that Fought Bhop.
To the Pavlik who fought Taylor, and the Pavlik who fought Bhop.

B-Hop has a way of taking people out of their element. Not denying anything you are saying though, but we have to realize that many fights respect bernard and that respect gets them ruinned in the ring.

As for Nard vs Toney. God I wish this could have happened. I don't see toney winning though. Toney is very flat footed and one thing toney has always allowed his ENTIRE career is for people to side step around him and take advantage of his flat feet. This is something Bernard ALWAYS does, even to people who fight on their toes.. and Hopkins on movement alone wins in a toney fight imo.

I.E Griffin vs Toney.

[Bomp]

I must disagree Taeth.

For a start, Jones has a win over Hopkins.

Second, Jones won belts at 160, 168, 175 and heavyweight. B-Hop never did that.

Third, a lot of Hopkins biggest wins were against guys he had distinct size and weight advantages over (DLH, Winky, Pavlik). Lets not forget that at light heavyweight his resume consists of a shot Tarver and a bunch of guys moving up.

No, B-Hop is a great fighter, but Roy is greater IMO.

I disagree here.
Styles make fights, for one.
You can't use a fighters loss against someone against them.
Hopkins would defeat more opposition/styles than Jones would.
That, imo, makes him p4p the better fighter. Just because roy had to style
to beat hopkins doesn't mean he's suddenly better because he holds a victory over him.


If 1 beats 3 - 10. But loses to 2, and 2 loses to 4, 5 and 6, who 1 beat.
Then who is the better fighter? No question, 1 is.

Also. Let's keep in mind hopkins was still perfecting his craft when he fought Roy. Since then Hopkins had gotten better and better with each fight, which would possibly indicate he wasn't quite primed yet? While Roy didn't get any better, just began moving up in weights.

Just my thoughts on the whole " Roy beat hopkins, he has to be better ATG ranked ".

Now.. One of the reasons Hopkins imo goes down better ranked than Roy is because other than his jones fight you can argue that hopkins has never been beaten. Hes also never been so much as scratched. His incredible title reign, number of defenses, and the level that he fights at at such an old age. These are all enormous feats and imo hold equal weight to roys accomplishments.

We see how great hopkins is at 175. Now that Roy lost his next and final fight may be at Heavyweight. People can easily argue that Hopkins could have gone up in weight classes and won the straps too, just like roy did. It's a very good arguement too considering how beautifuly he's made the transition to the new weight at such an old age.. so no question he could have done it then aswell.. but was intent on making history in the midweight division and not moving up in weight classes.

There are so many variables to these guys careers, we could argue forever.
imo, it's Roys prime skill, multi-weight championships that make him great.
Versus Hopkins resume, Midweight accomplishments, and level of comp at an old age.

People will always argue that hopkins was bigger than his best wins.
But atleast with hopkins, unlike roy, we don't have to look at his prime and rank him
based on what he did years ago. With hopkins, we can judge him by his past AND his present. Because the man is STILL great.

Roy has a great past. Hopkins has a great past, present, and maybe even future if he's
serious about the move to heavyweight.

Roy is done.. he's gotten all of his badges and achievements out of the way.
Hopkins is actually still going strong. If he hasn't surpassed Roy in ATG rank already,
then he will.

But as stated before 95% of Nards important wins are over smaller guys moving up in weight and in the middle of all that he had his fair share of Tomato cans mixed into, I say nard will always be one step below Roy in the ATG department.. I believe that James Toney would beat Hopkins, he is on par defensively works harder in a fight and counters beautifully and would have matched him and strength..Perfect style to beat Hopkins

Even Tarver for example, there is a stark contrast in the Tarver that fought Jones and the one that fought Hopkins, Tarver was much slower, pushing his punches etc... No one made a big deal out of that fight other than what Hopkins did because everyone hates Tarver, but it was apparent that Tarver was slipping bad too

IMO it is ver very dificult to call Hopkins V Toney. It has a lot to do of when and under what cirumstances. All three (Hop, Roy, Toney) are brilliant back foot fighters, so IMO it would depend a lot of who would crack first and start pressing. This is where the circumstances come in, in the Roy-Hop fight Bernard was the unknown quantity at the time, and probably felt that he HAD to press the action more to get the decision. Toney HAD to press the action against Jones since he started to get behind in the scorecards early. Contrast this to the last 7 years of Hopkins career where in most fights he blankly refused to come forwards, which he payed dearly for against Taylor since he probably expected the close rounds to go the champions way.

[JT Rock]

I disagree here.
Styles make fights, for one.
You can't use a fighters loss against someone against them.
Hopkins would defeat more opposition/styles than Jones would.
That, imo, makes him p4p the better fighter. Just because roy had to style
to beat hopkins doesn't mean he's suddenly better because he holds a victory over him.


If 1 beats 3 - 10. But loses to 2, and 2 loses to 4, 5 and 6, who 1 beat.
Then who is the better fighter? No question, 1 is.

Also. Let's keep in mind hopkins was still perfecting his craft when he fought Roy. Since then Hopkins had gotten better and better with each fight, which would possibly indicate he wasn't quite primed yet? While Roy didn't get any better, just began moving up in weights.

Just my thoughts on the whole " Roy beat hopkins, he has to be better ATG ranked ".

Now.. One of the reasons Hopkins imo goes down better ranked than Roy is because other than his jones fight you can argue that hopkins has never been beaten. Hes also never been so much as scratched. His incredible title reign, number of defenses, and the level that he fights at at such an old age. These are all enormous feats and imo hold equal weight to roys accomplishments.

We see how great hopkins is at 175. Now that Roy lost his next and final fight may be at Heavyweight. People can easily argue that Hopkins could have gone up in weight classes and won the straps too, just like roy did. It's a very good arguement too considering how beautifuly he's made the transition to the new weight at such an old age.. so no question he could have done it then aswell.. but was intent on making history in the midweight division and not moving up in weight classes.

There are so many variables to these guys careers, we could argue forever.
imo, it's Roys prime skill, multi-weight championships that make him great.
Versus Hopkins resume, Midweight accomplishments, and level of comp at an old age.

People will always argue that hopkins was bigger than his best wins.
But atleast with hopkins, unlike roy, we don't have to look at his prime and rank him
based on what he did years ago. With hopkins, we can judge him by his past AND his present. Because the man is STILL great.

Roy has a great past. Hopkins has a great past, present, and maybe even future if he's
serious about the move to heavyweight.

Roy is done.. he's gotten all of his badges and achievements out of the way.
Hopkins is actually still going strong. If he hasn't surpassed Roy in ATG rank already,
then he will.

But as stated before 95% of Nards important wins are over smaller guys moving up in weight and in the middle of all that he had his fair share of Tomato cans mixed into, I say nard will always be one step below Roy in the ATG department.. I believe that James Toney would beat Hopkins, he is on par defensively works harder in a fight and counters beautifully and would have matched him and strength..Perfect style to beat Hopkins

Even Tarver for example, there is a stark contrast in the Tarver that fought Jones and the one that fought Hopkins, Tarver was much slower, pushing his punches etc... No one made a big deal out of that fight other than what Hopkins did because everyone hates Tarver, but it was apparent that Tarver was slipping bad too

There's also a start contrast to the Winky that fought Taylor and the Winky that Fought Bhop.
To the Pavlik who fought Taylor, and the Pavlik who fought Bhop.

B-Hop has a way of taking people out of their element. Not denying anything you are saying though, but we have to realize that many fights respect bernard and that respect gets them ruinned in the ring.

As for Nard vs Toney. God I wish this could have happened. I don't see toney winning though. Toney is very flat footed and one thing toney has always allowed his ENTIRE career is for people to side step around him and take advantage of his flat feet. This is something Bernard ALWAYS does, even to people who fight on their toes.. and Hopkins on movement alone wins in a toney fight imo.

I.E Griffin vs Toney.

Technically I think your onto something but Toney is a rare animal, he was been able to take a carbon copy of himself and trek 50lbs north fighting guys and assimilating power from true heavyweights.. Thats the difference, I couldnt see Hop taking his style and beating Jirov, Holyfield, Ruiz Peter(regardless of the judges Toney beat him the 1st fight) etc..

Thats saying something about the mans in ring intelligence, skill and toughness.. I think the shoulder rolling, countering and matching up with the dirty tactics would wear Hop out down the stretch, Toney can take your heart in a fight and I think the fact that Toney is always running his mouth and taunting would get Hop pretty damned frustrated

[Spicoli]

But as stated before 95% of Nards important wins are over smaller guys moving up in weight and in the middle of all that he had his fair share of Tomato cans mixed into, I say nard will always be one step below Roy in the ATG department.. I believe that James Toney would beat Hopkins, he is on par defensively works harder in a fight and counters beautifully and would have matched him and strength..Perfect style to beat Hopkins

Even Tarver for example, there is a stark contrast in the Tarver that fought Jones and the one that fought Hopkins, Tarver was much slower, pushing his punches etc... No one made a big deal out of that fight other than what Hopkins did because everyone hates Tarver, but it was apparent that Tarver was slipping bad too

There's also a start contrast to the Winky that fought Taylor and the Winky that Fought Bhop.
To the Pavlik who fought Taylor, and the Pavlik who fought Bhop.

B-Hop has a way of taking people out of their element. Not denying anything you are saying though, but we have to realize that many fights respect bernard and that respect gets them ruinned in the ring.

As for Nard vs Toney. God I wish this could have happened. I don't see toney winning though. Toney is very flat footed and one thing toney has always allowed his ENTIRE career is for people to side step around him and take advantage of his flat feet. This is something Bernard ALWAYS does, even to people who fight on their toes.. and Hopkins on movement alone wins in a toney fight imo.

I.E Griffin vs Toney.

Technically I think your onto something but Toney is a rare animal, he was been able to take a carbon copy of himself and trek 50lbs north fighting guys and assimilating power from true heavyweights.. Thats the difference, I couldnt see Hop taking his style and beating Jirov, Holyfield, Ruiz Peter(regardless of the judges Toney beat him the 1st fight) etc..

Thats saying something about the mans in ring intelligence, skill and toughness.. I think the shoulder rolling, countering and matching up with the dirty tactics would wear Hop out down the stretch, Toney can take your heart in a fight and I think the fact that Toney is always running his mouth and taunting would get Hop pretty damned frustrated

Would have been a classic.But I think Toney's bad habit of timing out rounds,taking off in spots,would have cost him.Hopkins at that stage was not the lay back pot shot artist we have seen recently and could spin off and had a big volume.Could get Toney off balance and equally get into Toney's head imo.

[intoccabile]

There's also a start contrast to the Winky that fought Taylor and the Winky that Fought Bhop.
To the Pavlik who fought Taylor, and the Pavlik who fought Bhop.

B-Hop has a way of taking people out of their element. Not denying anything you are saying though, but we have to realize that many fights respect bernard and that respect gets them ruinned in the ring.

As for Nard vs Toney. God I wish this could have happened. I don't see toney winning though. Toney is very flat footed and one thing toney has always allowed his ENTIRE career is for people to side step around him and take advantage of his flat feet. This is something Bernard ALWAYS does, even to people who fight on their toes.. and Hopkins on movement alone wins in a toney fight imo.

I.E Griffin vs Toney.

Technically I think your onto something but Toney is a rare animal, he was been able to take a carbon copy of himself and trek 50lbs north fighting guys and assimilating power from true heavyweights.. Thats the difference, I couldnt see Hop taking his style and beating Jirov, Holyfield, Ruiz Peter(regardless of the judges Toney beat him the 1st fight) etc..

Thats saying something about the mans in ring intelligence, skill and toughness.. I think the shoulder rolling, countering and matching up with the dirty tactics would wear Hop out down the stretch, Toney can take your heart in a fight and I think the fact that Toney is always running his mouth and taunting would get Hop pretty damned frustrated

Would have been a classic.But I think Toney's bad habit of timing out rounds,taking off in spots,would have cost him.Hopkins at that stage was not the lay back pot shot artist we have seen recently and could spin off and had a big volume.Could get Toney off balance and equally get into Toney's head imo.

Bhop named himself the executioner for his antics. Hard to see toney getting in nards head. But nard definitely didn't have the wisdom and maturity he has now, so it's very possible.
Overall though,great points, and i just wish it could have appened.