BoxRec

I think, I have once created a thread about this fight from my previous account. But it didn't get much response. The upcoming Canelo-Crawford bout kinda inspired me to revive the topic.

Maskaev-Hopkins is the fight, that was actually in discussions in late 2006.

Following Hopkins's win over Tarver at LHW and Maskaev's heroic WBC title-winning effort against Rahman (both fights happened in summer of 2006), B-Hop was flirting with an idea of jumping up to HW and grabbing a belt there.

Apparently, Hop viewed Maskaev as someone he could make history against. He was going to, once again, use the services of Makey Shilstone and prepare his body for a jump to HW.

According to reports from old archives, there were discussions between Richard Schaefer/Golden Boy Promotions and Dennis Rappoport (Maskaev's promoter, at the time) about staging the fight in 2007 on HBO PPV.

But the purse disagreement made the fight a no-go.

Let's imagine for a second that the fight would've materialized.

How would you rate Hopkins's chances here? Could he have repeated the success of his peers, Roy Jones and James Toney?

Maskaev may have been too strong for Hopkins. He wasn't the greatest boxer, but he did pack a hell of an overhand right, and I could easily see him stopping Hopkins with it.

Hopkins wrestled a lot. Maskaev was really strong i do t see that working

If B-Hop really felt it was do-able, the fight would have happened.

Seamus wrote: ↑26 Aug 2025, 22:31 If B-Hop really felt it was do-able, the fight would have happened.

I don't think Hopkins was doing it for publicity only (he wasn't calling out Klitschko's, after all). But by the looks of it, he wanted to be compensated well for the taken risk. And at the same time, they may have lowballed Maskaev.

I see Dennis Rappoport (who, like I said, promoted Maskaev at the time) on Facebook from time to time. He communicates well with people, it seems. I might ask him about those negotiations. Perhaps, he wouldn't mind sharing his part of the story.