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[daprofessor]

self managed fighters such as bhop, roy jones and floyd mayweather do not rely on matchmakers and promoters (like pac and toprank) to pick their opposition because they are special talents that are capable of doing that on their own. it's a huge part of their success.

roy had his deal with hbo....and as a result we got to see him dominate over matched opposition for years. guys i never heard of like glenn kelly or the police officer that sold the bottom of his shoes for advertisement...and guys way past their primes like pazienza who had absolutely no business at super middle. he did some amazing things against those no-hopers. then he went up in weight and fought ruiz. prior to that though...he was avoiding his mandatory opponent, antonio tarver. everyone thought tarver would be killed by roy, myself included. tarver had to fight to be the mandatory twice. he knew something we didn't. roy didn't want any part of tarver. tarver called him out at the press conference for jones/ruiz and the world was shocked. the first fight happened and roy squeaked out victory and had a ton of excuses for winning. then the rematch happened. we all remember that.

bhop has been thee master at picking his opposition. he prides himself for "doing it his way" for all of these years. he's beat some great opposition along the way too! his best wins came against guys no one thought he could beat....tarver, pavlik and more recently....pascal. the potential opponent that no one paid attention to was dawson. a lot of fans feel bhop was avoiding dawson....but many more felt it was the right thing to do because after all...he wasn't a draw and dawson lost to pascal. and he looked like crap in his fight prior to hopkins. no way dawson belongs in the ring with bhop. then came the fight at the staples center where i believed bhop faked injury to get out of an inevitable ass whoopin. that theory was proven right imo after this past weekend when bad chad put it on bhop for several rounds in a fight that was more one sided than all of his losses combined.

notice the pattern? fighter picks opponents...he shines. forced to fight an opponent...no so much.

which brings me to floyd mayweather. arguably the most brilliant fighter of his time. he was voted fighter of the year in '98 and then again in '08. that alone is a huge accomplishment. but let's be honest....since his move up from 135....he has been picking and choosing his opposition in the same fashion as rjj and bhop and he's been shining. now....he's been forced to settle for miguel cotto because he has run out of options. on the surface it would appear that he chose miguel...but the honest truth is he didn't have any other options that would pay as much. so now...he's forced into this match that he chose to avoid when he retired after the hatton fight. will the pattern repeat? i think so.

i am now going on record....cotto is going to be the first fighter to beat floyd.

(then next month...when pac faces bradley...he's also going to lose. that doesn't apply here because pac isn't self managed. ) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

This post has been edited by daprofessor: May 1 2012, 08:32 PM

[Thebruntje]

self managed fighters such as bhop, roy jones and floyd mayweather do not rely on matchmakers and promoters (like pac and toprank) to pick their opposition because they are special talents that are capable of doing that on their own. it's a huge part of their success.

roy had his deal with hbo....and as a result we got to see him dominate over matched opposition for years. guys i never heard of like glenn kelly or the police officer that sold the bottom of his shoes for advertisement...and guys way past their primes like pazienza who had absolutely no business at super middle. he did some amazing things against those no-hopers. then he went up in weight and fought ruiz. prior to that though...he was avoiding his mandatory opponent, antonio tarver. everyone thought tarver would be killed by roy, myself included. tarver had to fight to be the mandatory twice. he knew something we didn't. roy didn't want any part of tarver. tarver called him out at the press conference for jones/ruiz and the world was shocked. the first fight happened and roy squeaked out victory and had a ton of excuses for winning. then the rematch happened. we all remember that.

bhop has been thee master at picking his opposition. he prides himself for "doing it his way" for all of these years. he's beat some great opposition along the way too! his best wins came against guys no one thought he could beat....tarver, pavlik and more recently....pascal. the potential opponent that no one paid attention to was dawson. a lot of fans feel bhop was avoiding dawson....but many more felt it was the right thing to do because after all...he wasn't a draw and dawson lost to pascal. and he looked like crap in his fight prior to hopkins. no way dawson belongs in the ring with bhop. then came the fight at the staples center where i believed bhop faked injury to get out of an inevitable ass whoopin. that theory was proven right imo after this past weekend when bad chad put it on bhop for several rounds in a fight that was more one sided than all of his losses combined.

notice the pattern? fighter picks opponents...he shines. forced to fight an opponent...no so much.

which brings me to floyd mayweather. arguably the most brilliant fighter of his time. he was voted fighter of the year in '98 and then again in '08. that alone is a huge accomplishment. but let's be honest....since his move up from 135....he has been picking and choosing his opposition in the same fashion as rjj and bhop and he's been shining. now....he's been forced to settle for miguel cotto because he has run out of options. on the surface it would appear that he chose miguel...but the honest truth is he didn't have any other options that would pay as much. so now...he's forced into this match that he chose to avoid when he retired after the hatton fight. will the pattern repeat? i think so.

i am now going on record....cotto is going to be the first fighter to beat floyd.

(then next month...when pac faces bradley...he's also going to lose. that doesn't apply here because pac isn't self managed. ) :

Your breakdown was nice but i disagree with a lot of points you made! Let's start by jones!
Jones may have handpicked some opponents but he also had some good competition! He was the only guy able to beat a prime Hopkins decisively, no other boxer has done that, not even Dawson who fought a 47 year old Hopkins! Jones also defeated a prime Toney ( one of the best boxers of the last 30 years) and a prime Griffin! It's is true Jones also fought a lot of bums, but now you tell me, who hasn't?
I don't really understand why do you say Hopkins was able to handpick his opponents when in fact Hopkins has never been the most marketable boxer! Don't forget Hopkins was most of the time the underdog in his big fights! In 2004 Hopkins was praying for de la hoya to win when de la hoya faced sturm! Why did hopkins do that? Because he wanted to face De la Hoya for a big pay day but de la hoya was the cash cow not Hopkins! The bad thing about Hopkins's competition is the fact that his biggest wins were all against naturally smaller men ( Trinidad, De la Hoya, Wright, Pavlik...) but on the other hand there isn't one fighter who was able to beat Hopkins looking good doing it, and let's not forget Hopkins was robbed against Calzague!! I can't agree with your comparison between the jones/ tarver fight and the Hopkins/Dawson fight! Why not? Because first of all Dawson didn't knock Hopkins out and let's face it his win over Hopkins was not impressive at all, i think that a prime Hopkins would've beaten a prime Dawson!
Now let's talk about the Mayweather situation! You said Mayweather handpicked his opponents since he moved to 135, but as someone else mentioned before Mayweather was promoted by Arum until 2006 so yout logic can't be applied here! Mayweather only became a cash cow after facing De la Hoya in 2007 so you may even argue that all his opponents after 2007 were handpicked but the truth is that before facing certain opponents Mayweather is accused of ducking them, and after beating them there is always one excuse! If Mayweather faces a young fighter the excuse will be: Mayweather beat the guy because he was young and inexperienced! If Mayweather faces a guy the same age the excuse is : Mayweather is facing a past prime fighter! Moral of the story? Haters will always have one or more excuses!
Is it possible for Cotto to beat Floyd? Absolutely! Anything can happen in boxing! That doesn't change the fact of Cotto having a bigger chance of being beaten by Floyd!

[daprofessor]

Your breakdown was nice but i disagree with a lot of points you made! Let's start by jones!
Jones may have handpicked some opponents but he also had some good competition! He was the only guy able to beat a prime Hopkins decisively, no other boxer has done that, not even Dawson who fought a 47 year old Hopkins! Jones also defeated a prime Toney ( one of the best boxers of the last 30 years) and a prime Griffin! It's is true Jones also fought a lot of bums, but now you tell me, who hasn't?
I don't really understand why do you say Hopkins was able to handpick his opponents when in fact Hopkins has never been the most marketable boxer! Don't forget Hopkins was most of the time the underdog in his big fights! In 2004 Hopkins was praying for de la hoya to win when de la hoya faced sturm! Why did hopkins do that? Because he wanted to face De la Hoya for a big pay day but de la hoya was the cash cow not Hopkins! The bad thing about Hopkins's competition is the fact that his biggest wins were all against naturally smaller men ( Trinidad, De la Hoya, Wright, Pavlik...) but on the other hand there isn't one fighter who was able to beat Hopkins looking good doing it, and let's not forget Hopkins was robbed against Calzague!! I can't agree with your comparison between the jones/ tarver fight and the Hopkins/Dawson fight! Why not? Because first of all Dawson didn't knock Hopkins out and let's face it his win over Hopkins was not impressive at all, i think that a prime Hopkins would've beaten a prime Dawson!
Now let's talk about the Mayweather situation! You said Mayweather handpicked his opponents since he moved to 135, but as someone else mentioned before Mayweather was promoted by Arum until 2006 so yout logic can't be applied here! Mayweather only became a cash cow after facing De la Hoya in 2007 so you may even argue that all his opponents after 2007 were handpicked but the truth is that before facing certain opponents Mayweather is accused of ducking them, and after beating them there is always one excuse! If Mayweather faces a young fighter the excuse will be: Mayweather beat the guy because he was young and inexperienced! If Mayweather faces a guy the same age the excuse is : Mayweather is facing a past prime fighter! Moral of the story? Haters will always have one or more excuses!
Is it possible for Cotto to beat Floyd? Absolutely! Anything can happen in boxing! That doesn't change the fact of Cotto having a bigger chance of being beaten by Floyd!

u make some very valid points. i can't knock roys accomplishments against his high level competition...but he did have a nice stretch of picking his opposition. point is...tarver was not his first option. tarver ktfo'd him.

as for bhop...his 20 something title defenses are impressive on paper....but beating guys like hakkar, echols and such are not really impressive imo. neither is faking injury to avoid a whoopin like in bhop/allen 1. like u said...his best wins came against guys smaller than him. maybe he didn't pick and choose his opposition as much as roy...but he did have a stretch of choosing his opposition. say what u want about chad...i knew he would beat hopkins...just like i knew hopkins wanted no part of that bout.

i said after 135 for mayweather...but ur right, he was with top stank before he faced dlh. i can't blame totally for mitchell, brusselles and ndou. but everything after dlh has been carefully planned out imo. shane was tough...and i give him all props in the world for that victory...but i cannot recall the last time floyd wasn't favored to win a fight....or i thought his opponents had a legitmate chance to beat him.

truth is...there's no such thing as an easy fight. so no matter who the opponent...a win is a win. i guess the point i'm trying to make is i think cotto has a solid shot at beating floyd.