BoxRec

Yep, Whitaker is up there with him but the others I'm not so sure about. And he was definitely better than Hopkins. In their primes Jones wins 9 out of 10. IMO Hopkins is a bit overrated these days

Re Julian Jackson...I was always of the opinion he could KO an elephant but fighters like Hagler would have taken his power then easily broken him down with skill. Mike McCallum showed us that in 2 rounds

bollox wrote:Yep, Whitaker is up there with him but the others I'm not so sure about. And he was definitely better than Hopkins. In their primes Jones wins 9 out of 10. IMO Hopkins is a bit overrated these days

Re Julian Jackson...I was always of the opinion he could KO an elephant but fighters like Hagler would have taken his power then easily broken him down with skill. Mike McCallum showed us that in 2 rounds

I would slightly favor Jones head to head in their primes, that doesn't make him a greater fighter. History is littered with match ups like Norton/Ali.

From a distance Hopkins seems a great fighter but a closer look at his career to me shows some skewed results that need to be put into context. Record number of defences for example...I'd take Hagler's 12 challengers over Hopkins' 20 or so defences no sweat. Infact Hagler's pre title fights against top opp were better than Hopkins' title defences combined

Hopkins to me is half a level below the greats of the middleweight division

I don't rate Hopkins over Hagler at Middleweight. But I probably would on an all time list. His Light Heavyweight credentials are still growing as he approaches 50. Roy hasn't been relevant in many years while Hopkins has had some of his better wins.

And as you mention revisionist history, the Trinidad master class gets tossed aside more and more with every passing day. Same thing is happening with the Pavlik fight, but those two wins were as impressive to me as anything Roy ever did. My top Jones performance is probably reggie johnson. He will always be an underrated fighter.