Quote Originally Posted by verminaard View Post
I think Barry's criticism is actually valid to an extent, and JMM is reacting more towards some kind of history between himself and Barry than the comment itself. For whatever reason, I think it is safe to say that genetically great athletes above a certain weight (especially in the US) that may have once gravitated towards boxing in past generations are gravitating more towards team sports such as baseball and football. I don't think it is a coincidence that middleweight is the weight where we see a 49 year old boxer dominating his weight class, as this is probably around the cutoff where you are big enough to compete in baseball/football/basketball/etc.. You can pretty much say the same thing with the Klitchko's dominating the heavyweight division. Heck, it is not too big a stretch to imagine an almost 50 year old Lennox Lewis still being on top if he had decided to keep fighting like Hopkins.

Anwyays, I think it is ok to postulate that boxing is severely watered down in the bigger weight divisions, which is why you can tell the talent pool and quality of boxing is so much higher in smaller weight classes.
I think Barry comes off as a know it all, even when it's something he knows very little about. But it changes nothing. His opinion on Hopkins seems like "oh, he's old and winning, everyone else must suck". Bernard Hopkins isn't your average 49 year old. And he's the only guy his age doing it.

And when it was Randy Cotoure, everyone was too busy sucking him off, to worry about his age.

Boxing for sure isn't what it was, but Hopkins is the only guy from his era that's even worth a shit anymore. Roy Jones Jr is washed. James Toney, too. It's speaks to how good Hopkins is, not how bad everyone else is.