The thing that's overlooked about that fight is how hopkins took away winky's jab. It was an ugly looking fight, but it's no easy task to take Winky's jab hopkins did it.
What impresses me about hopkins is that every fight he tries to take away his opponents best weapon and usually, once he strips them of that they are nothing. That's why so frequently you have guys who have their career worst performances against Hopkins - Pavlik, Tito, Tarver, Winky, Pascal, Calzaghe and many of the top guys at 160 back in the day. Which is why with hopkins there are so many excuses - "oh pavlik only lost and looked like crap because he was at 170", "Tarver looked like crap because of the Rocky movie," "Trinidad looked like crap because of 9/11 and/or he wasn't a true 160 pounder." No it's because hopkins MAKES you look like crap by design!
No, 16 pounds. He only went up to 160 because everyone was ducking him at 154 and Taylor was the only guy willing to fight him.
As for the fight itself, would have been far better if it wasnt for the headbutt and that big cut.
The thing that's overlooked about that fight is how hopkins took away winky's jab. It was an ugly looking fight, but it's no easy task to take Winky's jab hopkins did it.
What impresses me about hopkins is that every fight he tries to take away his opponents best weapon and usually, once he strips them of that they are nothing. That's why so frequently you have guys who have their career worst performances against Hopkins - Pavlik, Tito, Tarver, Winky, Pascal, Calzaghe and many of the top guys at 160 back in the day. Which is why with hopkins there are so many excuses - "oh pavlik only lost and looked like crap because he was at 170", "Tarver looked like crap because of the Rocky movie," "Trinidad looked like crap because of 9/11 and/or he wasn't a true 160 pounder." No it's because hopkins MAKES you look like crap by design!
It's one of the reason the Calzaghe fight interested me a lot. I know people here are gonna ***** and moan but Calzaghe was one smart fighter and actually was very similar to Hopkins, though not as methodical and technical about it. I think about as Calzaghe doing it naturally, whereas BHop was trained to do it and taught specific things about it.....The 'it' was stopping an opponents best weapon and smothering them.
Making them fight wrong and do what they don't want to do. Both guys actually did it very, very, very well in their fight against each other. If you look closely, both guys really did fight their fight and stop each other doing their thing best as well. That's what made it such a weird, ugly ****ing fight. It's why both guys looked like **** in it.
It's funny that people always talk of Hopkins being old against Calzaghe and having an old night, yet suddenly has two of his great career best performances straight after it, while looking like an old man in that one fight.
No, just like Hopkins makes fighters look bad, so did Calzaghe. They both fought their own fight and both made each other look bad.
my take
1:Antonio Tarver
2:Felix Trinidad
3:Kelly Pavlik
4:Robert Allen
5:Winky Wright
Glen Johnson was a green contender (SC: he hadn't won a title or had a title fight. Hadn't beaten a top/No 1 fighter yet and was still very green in experience. He didn't actually become a good fighter many, many years after that point, so beating that version of Johnson doesn't mean much compared to his other wins imo.
Glen Johnson was a green contender (SC: he hadn't won a title or had a title fight. Hadn't beaten a top/No 1 fighter yet and was still very green in experience. He didn't actually become a good fighter many, many years after that point, so beating that version of Johnson doesn't mean much compared to his other wins imo.
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