By James Blears

Four from twelve, leaves eight. And that’s the sum Bernard Hopkins got wrong, rather than one judge scoring the final round differently than his other two colleagues.

This is the opinion of WBC President Jose Sulaiman, and he stated it to boxing scribes, at a coffee morning in the heart of downtown Mexico City.

Judges Paul Smith and Jerry Roth each scored the final round for Bernard Hopkins. While Duane Ford begged to differ. If he tallied, it would have been a draw and Bernard would have kept his title.

But Don Jose explained: “A draw would have been a very unfair decision. There’s no question in my mind that Jermain Taylor won the fight. And he won it, because Bernard Hopkins almost didn’t throw any punches in the first eight rounds. He let him go.

“Perhaps Bernard thought he was going to knock Jermain out? Hopkins came strong and won the last four rounds, but he did not win the overall fight.

“Bernard Hopkins is a wily old Fox. He knows boxing from A to Z. Perhaps he thought he might knock out Jermain Taylor, and gave him time. But then he realized that if he wanted something, he had to come back, because he was loosing the fight. He had done nothing in the first eight rounds.”

Now all the talk concerns a re-match possibly in December. And Don Jose says that the re-match is up for grabs:

“It’s a flip of the coin in the air, because Jermain Taylor proved to be much better than what many people thought.

“And when a boxer gets to the age of Bernard Hopkins, you will never know what will happen in the next fight.”

Love him…. or respect him, Bernard Hopkins has notched up a record 20 defenses of the World Middleweight title, which puts him up there was some legends such as, Bob Fitzsimmons, Harry Greb, Mickey Walker, Marcel Cerdan, Tony Zale, Rocky Graziano, Sugar Ray Robinson, Carlos Monzon and Marvin Hagler to name but a few.

Don Jose was lavish if cautious in his praise of Bernard saying: “Bernard Hopkins is without question one of the best fighters I’ve seen in my life. I would rate him as one of the best fifteen middleweights of all time.” And Don Jose prudently suggested it is up to boxing fans to pick which place in all of this  middleweight magnificence they would place Bernard?