Hopkins: GGG-Lemieux Could Be Tactical, Ends Violently
Oct 17, 2015 • 2:21 AM ET
By Keith Idec
NEW YORK – Bernard Hopkins considers Gennady Golovkin and David Lemieux better boxers than Hopkins suspects most people think when it comes to these powerful punchers.
The former middleweight and light heavyweight champion anticipates their middleweight title unification fight unfolding strategically Saturday night at Madison Square Garden (HBO Pay-Per-View; $49.99-$59.99; 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT), not like the unforgettable brawls between the late Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward.
“This fight will be a little bit more technical than people think,” Hopkins said, before adding that he still expects it to end in brutal fashion. “But I still think it’s going to end violently. It’s going to end where somebody’s rescued by the referee or knocked out.”
Hopkins – a partner in Golden Boy Promotions, Lemieux’s promoter – also gives Montreal’s Lemieux (34-2, 31 KOs) “more than a puncher’s chance” of pulling off an upset against Golovkin (33-0, 30 KOs) than the 16-1 odds indicate.
“There are some strange things that happen in this Garden,” Hopkins said. “You can never say never. I know that we have a guy on our side that believes he can win. But he also respects [Golovkin] and he understands that he has to be not good, not so-so. He has to be near if not perfect.”
By “strange things,” Hopkins referred to his own win against Felix Trinidad, against whom the legend from Philadelphia was an underdog entering their middleweight championship unification fight at Madison Square Garden in September 2001. Hopkins, already 36 when they fought, dominated the then-undefeated Trinidad during that fight on his way to recording a 12th-round technical knockout and becoming one of the best boxers of his generation.
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
