Bernard Hopkins Says There Is Only One Fighter In History Greater Than Muhammad Ali

In the eyes of many, Muhammad Ali is the greatest fighter to have ever graced the sport, but Bernard Hopkins puts one man above him.

The heavyweight icon exploded onto the scene during the early sixties, making his professional debut just a couple of months after he walked away from the 1960 Olympic Games in Barcelona with a Gold Medal.

It took him four years to challenge for the world heavyweight championship for the first time, as he defeated Sonny Liston via sixth round stoppage to capture world honours in an early career defining victory for ‘The Greatest’.

Ali would go on to defeat a number of other legendary heavyweights in the years that followed, including the likes of Earnie Shavers, Ken Norton and George Foreman, beating the latter in the ‘Rumble In The Jungle’ in October of 1974.

Despite the considerable success of the late, great heavyweight hero, retired two-weight world champion Hopkins believes there is one fighter in particular that was even better than Ali.

Hopkins made no mistake in naming Sugar Ray Robinson as the greatest fighter of all time, but did acknowledge that Ali deserves to be ranked just behind the six-time world champion

“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.”

Similar to Ali, Robinson remains one of the most influential boxing figures of all time, proving his outstanding credentials throughout the course of his 25-year professional career.

After reigning as the world welterweight champion between 1946 and 1951, Robinson would make the move up to middleweight and stand as world champion on five separate occasions during a nine year period, defeating the likes of Rocky Graziano, Randolph Turpin and Jake LaMotta during his campaign.