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By Lyle Fitzsimmons - I’ve been a boxing fan for more than 30 years.
That means I’ve seen most of my generation’s nominees for the greatest fight of all time, most notably the first Pryor-Arguello duel in 1982, the Hagler-Hearns mini-masterpiece in 1985 and the epic to-and-fro between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo exactly two decades later.
Gun to my head… the last of those three matches is the best I’ve ever seen.
Of course, over that same time frame, there have been eagerly anticipated fights that turned out to be duds, and clashes that were barely noticed on the front end before winding up as classics.
We could all fill notebooks with varieties of both.
But over the last few weeks, I’ve heard the initial stages of rumbling for a fight that’s got me as intrigued as any I can remember encountering in either 36 years as a fan or 25 years as a professional journalist.
And the winner is: Bernard Hopkins vs. Carl Froch.
On the surface, I’ll concede it’s no Gatti/Ward.
Hopkins has long been the antithesis of titillation when it comes to ring work, content instead to make venomous promises at press conferences before lulling his opponents – and assembled audiences – to sleep during cerebral 12-round chess matches. [Click Here To Read More]
That means I’ve seen most of my generation’s nominees for the greatest fight of all time, most notably the first Pryor-Arguello duel in 1982, the Hagler-Hearns mini-masterpiece in 1985 and the epic to-and-fro between Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo exactly two decades later.
Gun to my head… the last of those three matches is the best I’ve ever seen.
Of course, over that same time frame, there have been eagerly anticipated fights that turned out to be duds, and clashes that were barely noticed on the front end before winding up as classics.
We could all fill notebooks with varieties of both.
But over the last few weeks, I’ve heard the initial stages of rumbling for a fight that’s got me as intrigued as any I can remember encountering in either 36 years as a fan or 25 years as a professional journalist.
And the winner is: Bernard Hopkins vs. Carl Froch.
On the surface, I’ll concede it’s no Gatti/Ward.
Hopkins has long been the antithesis of titillation when it comes to ring work, content instead to make venomous promises at press conferences before lulling his opponents – and assembled audiences – to sleep during cerebral 12-round chess matches. [Click Here To Read More]
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