Canelo and GGG where do they rate at middle?

[dr_devious]

lol howard eastman , wtf, for sure i rate bhop higher at mw but seriously bruh, howard eastman?

btw, at mw, 'lix sturm > oscar

Eastman was ranked #1 going into the Hopkins fight. I realize Eastman is no all time great, but his ranking at the time means he was the most legit guy Hopkins could've been facing at that time.

Howard Eastman gave a very good account of himself against Hopkins. A talented fighter.

[dr_devious]

Back to the original question. Both Alvarez and Golovkin would give pretty much any middleweight a very tough fight MW is an incredibly stacked division and Golovkin probably breaks into the top 20 or so. He had a long and brutal reign and although the names in his win ledger aren't exactly stellar he did handily beat everyone put in front of him handily until age caught up with him. Canelo hasn't had enough fights at MW to establish a legacy so its hard to give him a definitive rating. Peak for peak at MW they're of pretty similar calibre though.

[gilgamesh]

lol howard eastman , wtf, for sure i rate bhop higher at mw but seriously bruh, howard eastman?

btw, at mw, 'lix sturm > oscar

Eastman was ranked #1 going into the Hopkins fight. I realize Eastman is no all time great, but his ranking at the time means he was the most legit guy Hopkins could've been facing at that time.

ranked #1 by sanctioning body stuff, that i know you like so much. he was never actually the legit best guy in the world outside hopkins

Ring Magazine had him #1 going into that fight.

[gilgamesh]

Johnson was a tough fringe contender. Jacobs is better than him. The best version of Trinidad was at the lower weights. De La Hoya was also not at his weight and he fading in addition to that, coming off a loss to Sturm. Probably even the Johnson win was better than the ODLH one.

Those joppies and echolses were on about the same level as different oumas, lemieuxes and rosados. Both Golovkin and Hopkins were kings of relatively weak eras. Golovkin is at least a solid boxer in comparison to the dirty Hopkins. Moreover, Golovkin deserved a win over Canelo in their 1st bout.

Golovkin and Canelo are worthy of each other, both of them have more class than Hopkins. Canelo's resume in the MW division is tiny, but his win in the 2nd bout against Golovkin is much bigger than any win of Hopkins.

Canelo didn't deserve either Hopkins win.

Ouma and Lemieux are arguably as good of wins as Joppy and Echols, but no better.

When Hopkins fought the superstars from the smaller weight classes, he knocked them out. When GGG fought Canelo, he didn't.

Therefore Hopkins wins the legacy debate.

I personally wouldn't rank Golovkin far below Hopkins, but he would rank below him.

Canelo I'd rank well below Hopkins. I don't really recognize his Middleweight Championship reign as a major one because his biggest win at the weight class he didn't deserve.

Golovkin also KOed Brook. But with Canelo it's a specific case, he's not a small guy, despite the fact of coming from the lower class.

Canelo's win over Golovkin in the 2nd bout can be recognized as a close one. The 1st fight was a robbery, yes.

Even having the 2nd fight for Canelo means you're bending over backward to give him every close round.

I don't think it's close myself.

[margaret thatcher]

if eastman was 1 the division mustve sucked even worse than it did during ggg's reign, this is the first ive ever seen anyone like 'ya, hopksins was more accomplished, see look among other guys he beat howard eastman'

eastman wasnt even as good as, say, edison miranda. he was a good european champion who gave it a go but always fell short vs legit world class opposition