Hopkins – Taylor: The Talking Is Done – It’s Time To Fight

By Matthew Hurley

For several years, against underachieving but steadily improving competition, Jermain Taylor began to stake his claim as not only a future opponent for Bernard Hopkins, but the type of opponent Hopkins so desperately needed to cap off his glorious career. For far too long, Hopkins feasted on a steady diet of desultory mandatory defenses of his beloved title belts. Then came his night of perfection against fan and betting favorite Felix Trinidad, at a raucous Madison Square Garden in 2001. After brilliantly dismantling "Tito", Hopkins soared near the top of the pound for pound list and unified the middleweight division. And then, despite all that momentum, he nearly blew it all by returning to title defenses against marginal opposition. All the while Taylor kept improving his skills and boosting his confidence level. It was inevitable that both men would turn their focus on the other and a potential super fight would be born.

Negotiations for the fight reached their highest point when Hopkins somehow managed to keep his virulent comments about his former advisor Lou Dibella at a minimum during his 20th successful title defense against Howard Eastman. Dibella, who promotes Taylor, co-promoted the event (with Taylor on the undercard) alongside Hopkins’ promotional company Golden Boy Promotions. According to Dibella things remained professional, but icy, throughout the promotion.

"We were in the same room at the same time on a number of occasions," Dibella said. "I didn’t chat with him and he didn’t talk or even look at me." Nothing was directly brought up about their stormy past, which saw Dibella suing Hopkins for defamation of character. Hopkins lost that particular battle on appeal and neither man, to this day, can fathom the gall of the other.

Dibella shrugs in bewilderment when asked to continue. "All that bulls**t was really no impediment to making that promotion (and allowing Taylor to be showcased on the under card). Bernard is a businessman, and now he’s a promoter." The implication there is that Hopkins is smart enough to keep his notorious "big mouth" at least slightly closed until the deal is done. After that all bets are off, he becomes a fighter again and the dream interview of any reporter looking for a juicy sound bite.

"I’ve always given people reason to hate Bernard Hopkins," the champion said recently. He was alluding to his criminal, street running past. But that comment still applies in connection to many people in the boxing community today. He was born tough, bled and was bred on the streets of Philadelphia and wound up in prison. He has taken all that negativity into the ring and to the negotiating table and turned it into a positive. The stubbornness of Hopkins has not made him a popular figure, only the longest reigning middleweight champion in history, and a first ballot Hall of Fame candidate.

Taylor has a much different personality. Throughout all the hurdles that had to be jumped in order to make his dream bout a reality, he let his team do the running and the jumping while he trained and kept his focus entirely on the champion. Where Hopkins now wears several different hats, Taylor, the young gun, remains zeroed in on the task at hand – annexing the middleweight title.

"I’ve been steadily preparing myself for this moment," he says. "I’m ready now. I’m ready to be champion."

Hopkins, of course, disagrees. "His time will come but he’ll have to wait until Bernard Hopkins is gone." Hopkins, one of those athletes to adopt the annoying affectation of speaking of himself in the first person, says that Taylor is nothing more than a prodigal son. "I’m going to knock him out because he’s not in my league. Maybe one day, but not now."

Hopkins’ partner in promotion, Oscar De La Hoya, reiterates his fighters comments, but with a promoters slippery care for hype. "I don’t think Taylor is quite at Bernard’s level," he says, that ever present grin on his tanned face. "But we’ll all find out on July 16th."

Hopkins also has a double desire in beating Taylor and it all goes back to Lou Dibella. Beating Taylor, Dibella’s biggest young star, would add a nose-thumbing personal touch to the champion’s 21st title defense. Not only would he be sticking it to Dibella, who, now that the fight is happening, has again become Bernard’s verbal whipping boy, he would be sticking it to HBO. Hopkins has had a rocky relationship with the cable network, which reached it’s nadir after his tedious defense against the hapless Morrade Hakkar. Broadcaster Larry Merchant incessantly criticized Hopkins during the telecast and then laid into the champion during the post-fight interview. Don’t think for a moment that Hopkins has forgotten any of that. He is not a man who forgets even the most innocuous of slights. Hopkins buries them deep in his subconscious, feeds them with a controlled anger and then lets them grow into a steely mental resolve that has kept him the ultimate gym rat and ring professional. Beating HBO’s up and coming star, and Dibella’s only true hope for a champion, would be the gooey icing on Hopkins’ upcoming retirement cake.

Still, Taylor is good and getting better with every performance. The champion, closing in on 41 is slowing down. Time is our biggest enemy, even to an athletic phenomenon like Bernard Hopkins. The fact that Taylor’s skill level is moving up and the skill level of Hopkins is slowing down, has made this a much closer encounter then it would have been a few years ago. The story scenario of "rising star meets old champion" is what makes this bout such a big event. If the bout lives up to the pre-fight hype, boxing fans, already salivating over this one, will have a lot to be excited about on Saturday night.