How Bernard Hopkins’ Legacy Stacks Up with Sugar Ray Robinson

There are very few universal truths in boxing, but one of them—at least insofar as the vast majority of writers, historians and fans are concerned—is that Sugar Ray Robinson is the single greatest in-ring competitor the sport has ever produced.

Sure, you’ll run across a decent number of people willing to make the case for Muhammad Ali, and not without merit either, but the mere mention of Robinson alongside even today’s best fighters is likely to get you a sneer and a head shake.

But maybe it’s time for that to change.

Bernard Hopkins has a trophy bearing Sugar Ray Robinson’s likeness at his home in Delaware, the prize awarded to him for winning the Middleweight Championship Series and becoming undisputed champion in 2001.

At the risk of committing one of boxing’s cardinal sins, maybe it’s time to consider whether future trophies should bear Hopkins’ moniker and not just Robinson’s.

It’s a tough sell, and even Hopkins acknowledges that Robinson is the best fighter to ever lace up the gloves and step through the ropes.

“The best fighter ever is Sugar Ray Robinson. To me the best fighter after that is Muhammad Ali, and then the debate starts from on and on from there,” Hopkins said.

“My job is to go out and set a profound legacy that will be debated amongst generations where Bernard Hopkins sits in history.”

History.

That’s a small word with a huge meaning.

And within it like the essential question of Hopkins’ entire career.

It’s no longer about where he places vis-a-vis his contemporaries.

Yes, Floyd Mayweather has more natural talent. He’s been boxing’s undefeated pound-for-pound king for much of his career, established himself as the top financial draw in all of sports and took boxing mainstream again.
Manny Pacquiao is the first man to win world titles in eight weight division—though there is some debate as to the value of all those championships—and he cut a buzzsaw-like swath through good, very good and elite fighters to get there.

Hopkins, for whatever reason—he recently floated his race as a possibility—doesn’t receive the same mainstream attention as either of his more well known contemporaries.

Maybe it’s because he’s old school, cut from a different cloth than most of today’s athletes and refuses to flaunt what he has all over the public spotlight.

What he’s done in the sport, throughout two distinct stages of his career, truly sets him apart from all other fighters in his era.

It’s hard to anoint him the fighter of his generation, because his career has spanned multiple generations, and it’s hard to assess where one ends and another begins.

But on the nuts and bolts questions of boxing, the true achievements that are historical and transcendent, even Mayweather and Pacquiao take a backseat to Hopkins. His longevity and ability to defy the odds time and time again place him in some truly rarified air.

That leaves one significant, if controversial, comparison: Robinson.

But, first, one caveat.

Who’s a better fighter?

Nobody can answer that question, and anyone who claims that they can, even Hopkins, is giving you opinion and not fact. It might be educated opinion, but it remains beyond the reach of conclusive proof.

So what can we do?

We can compare legacies and the historical record.
And when we compare historical comparison between Hopkins and Robinson, as it turns out, is much closer than you may believe.

Consider first, Robinson’s historic career:

• 173-19-2, 108 KO’s
• One-time World Welterweight Champion
• Five-Time World Middleweight Champion
• 21-7-2 Record Against Fellow Hall of Famers
• Defeated Sammy Angott (3x), Fritzie Zivic (2x), Henry Armstrong, Jake LaMotta (5x), Kid Gavilan (2x), Bobo Olson (4x), Randy Turpin, Gene Fullmer, Carmen Basilio
• Beat 16 former, reigning or future world champion

Robinson won his first 40 fights without a loss before dropping a decision to LaMotta in a 1943 rematch. He would go undefeated over his next 91 fights, making a slew of future Hall of Famers look like club fighters from Podunk.

He only fought two Hall of Famers that he didn’t beat, losing to Joey Maxim at the old Yankee Stadium in a challenge for the light heavyweight crown, and Joey Giardello, who he fought when it was clear his best days were in the rear-view mirror.

Robinson set the bar so high that it’s hard for any fighter, from any era, to compete.

Enter Hopkins, and his middleweight run:

• 55-6-2, 32 KO’s
• Longest Reigning Middleweight Champion (10 years, 2 months, 17 days, surpassing Tommy Ryan)
• Most Middleweight Title Defenses (20, surpassing Carlos Monzon, Marvelous Marvin Hagler and Robinson)
• Oldest Fighter to Win a Middleweight Title (40 years, 6 months, 1 day, surpassing Robinson)
• First Middleweight to Win, Defend and Retain All Four Major Sanctioning Organization Titles (WBC/WBA/IBF/WBO) and The Ring Magazine Championship in the same fight
• 3-2 Career Record Against Hall of Famers (Including Roy Jones Jr. who will be enshrined)
• Beat 16 former, reigning or future world champion

Unlike Robinson, Hopkins lost his first bout out of the gate, dropping a majority decision to Clinton Mitchell in his professional debut. He lost again 23 bouts later to Jones Jr., but then remained undefeated over the next 12 years.

During that run, he broke all the aforementioned middleweight records, indelibly making his mark in boxing’s history books.

A lot of what he’s accomplished, again, at least during the first stage of his career, has come under the radar.

Maybe it’s because Hopkins is a boxer and not a fighter, a masterful technician who could compete in any era, but who left many fans, in love with knockouts and not the sweet science, hoping for more?

Or, perhaps, it’s because Hopkins became a star against the wishes of the people who move and shake things in the sport.

His story was supposed to end at the hands of Felix Trinidad in the finals of Don King’s middleweight tournament.

Such was the level of disrespect for Hopkins’ chances, and the desire to use the tournament to elevate Trinidad from star to legend, that the championship trophy was engraved with the Puerto Rican’s name before the fight took place.

Hopkins beat, beat up and embarrassed Trinidad over 12 one-sided rounds, stopping him in the closing minutes to become undisputed, but he had to wait a week to receive his prize.

They didn’t even bother making him a trophy, because the script said they didn’t need one.

Beating Trinidad tied Hopkins with Monzon, and he took the mark for himself with an easy win over former junior middleweight titlist Carl Daniels in his next bout.

His win over Oscar De La Hoya made him the first middleweight to hold all the major belts, and it enabled him to break Robinson’s record as the oldest middleweight champion, an accomplishment that—in retrospect—was a sign of things to come.

If Hopkins’ story ended right there, and he kept his promise to his late mother Shirley to not fight past his 40th birthday, a comparison to Robinson would still have merit.

Everything at this point, in the man’s own words, is stacking the deck.

“But right now I’m going to stack that deck so high that every reporter, every historian, everybody that studies boxing and analyzes boxing from the past to now is going to have a difficult time, and that’s the fun part about it, because I want them to have a difficult time because I didn’t have a boring career and I was blessed to have a long one,” Hopkins said.