BoxRec

Hopkins and Stevenson were on course to fight each other in 2013 and 2014. In early 2014, Stevenson even signed with Haymon and went to Showtime (where Hopkins and Golden Boy were operating at the time).

After B-Hop defeated Shumenov, he was vocal about his intentions to face Stevenson in Canada, in a WBC/WBA/IBF/Ring unification. All that was left for Stevenson is to defeat Fonfara (which he did, not without trouble) and that was it.

But Stevenson and Hopkins' negotiations have fallen through. And Hopkins did unexpected, signing to fight Kovalev on HBO.

Hopkins was legitimately old and faded at the time. But is it possible that Stevenson's style would've appeared somewhat easier for Hop to deal with than Kovalev's?

He probably would've done better against Stevenson than he did against Kovalev, but I think he'd have still lost. B Hop's time had come and gone by this time.

gilgamesh wrote: ↑22 Feb 2024, 14:02 He probably would've done better against Stevenson than he did against Kovalev, but I think he'd have still lost. B Hop's time had come and gone by this time.

That's about how I think, too.