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By Mitch Abramson - In the minutes following his curiously one-sided win over Winky Wright on Saturday, Bernard Hopkins made a surprising confession. He came clean regarding his pre-fight mischief. He admitted his palming of Winky’s head at a press-conference was a calculated stunt intended to inspire ticket sales, spike pay-per-view buys.
Smiling, almost preening for the HBO cameras, Hopkins admitted, that, hey, you know, he did it to whip up interest, sell tickets, make SportsCenter. "I hope the commission understands that I had to promote a good fight," he said to Max Kellerman. "It was nothing but promotion, baby."
"Just business, baby," he seemed to say.
Hopefully, crunching numbers won’t be at the heart of Saturday’s match between Vernon Forrest and Carlos Baldomir, who meet for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title in Tacoma, Washington.
It may have all the intrigue of a school play, but there’s a sense the fight will be more about throwing punches than the bottom line.
After all, this is a contest between two prideful veterans, literally, fighting to stay relevant in a junior middleweight division that has recently lost its luster.
If the event lacks buzz, which Forrest admitted, at least it will be handled without the whiff of impropriety.
During a recent news cycle in which an NBA referee is alleged to have bet on games and to have mob ties, an NFL player is indicted for illegal dog fighting, and the Tour de France is postponed by cyclists protesting the rash of doping problems in racing, a boxing match between two standup individuals seems almost tame by comparison. [details]
Smiling, almost preening for the HBO cameras, Hopkins admitted, that, hey, you know, he did it to whip up interest, sell tickets, make SportsCenter. "I hope the commission understands that I had to promote a good fight," he said to Max Kellerman. "It was nothing but promotion, baby."
"Just business, baby," he seemed to say.
Hopefully, crunching numbers won’t be at the heart of Saturday’s match between Vernon Forrest and Carlos Baldomir, who meet for the vacant WBC junior middleweight title in Tacoma, Washington.
It may have all the intrigue of a school play, but there’s a sense the fight will be more about throwing punches than the bottom line.
After all, this is a contest between two prideful veterans, literally, fighting to stay relevant in a junior middleweight division that has recently lost its luster.
If the event lacks buzz, which Forrest admitted, at least it will be handled without the whiff of impropriety.
During a recent news cycle in which an NBA referee is alleged to have bet on games and to have mob ties, an NFL player is indicted for illegal dog fighting, and the Tour de France is postponed by cyclists protesting the rash of doping problems in racing, a boxing match between two standup individuals seems almost tame by comparison. [details]