Bernard Hopkins: An Unsportsman-like Flopper

[hugh grant]

Hopkins appeared to be hurt from some hard lefts by Joe towards the end of the ninth round, then in the tenth he took the rest by pretending a low blow hurt him.

He got hurt by a body shot probably and wanted to take a breather. Hopkins is a great spoiler of work but when he gets hit he feels pain like everyone does. He isnt man enough to admit when he is hurt though.

[MickyHatton]

Are you ******ed? This article is the biggest one-sided piece of crap I've read in a while on this site. I don't know how often you write, but this one is pathetic. You have obviously gone over the top and made exaggerated claims to prove your point. You even said you scored the fight 116-113 yet this article sounds like Hopkins was the one who got knocked down in the first round. What happened was this: Joe won by the standards of most judges and apparently most of the boxing public (simply more activity and being the "aggressor"), however Bernard won by the standards of a lot of judges, most boxers and a decent amount of boxing fans (landing harder, more effective punches as opposed to amateur and Olympic style taps that count for 1 point just like a knockdown in that scoring system). CompuBox is not God and has shown to be flawed in the past and you must be smoking something if you quote and follow Joe's 189 to 111 power punches. Just because a punch is powerful relative to a tap, doesn't mean it's a power punch. How do you determine how many punches land when Joe throws a combo of 10 in two seconds and Bernard retaliates with 3 or 4? They freaking guess! Make an estimation! Looked like 4 landed for Joe and 1 landed for Hopkins. Bernard didn't get hurt, Joe didn't really get hurt. Bernard did get hit with a low blow, but definitely milked it for rest. But can you blame a 43 year old man. And isn't that a smart thing to do if you were him and truly were tired? I didn't say "brave" or "manly", I said "smart" and completely within the rules.

While I agree with the sentiment in this post I must add that on a round to round basis Joe obviously outscored Hopkins. Hopkins landed the better quality shots but he did not land anywhere near enough. Calzaghe took the risks and forced the fight, Hopkins made him look sloppy at times but Joe did land enough quality shots in 7 or 8 of the rounds to win the fight.
Certainly the two Taylor fights were closer than the Calzaghe fight and a lot more boring.

I understand Hopkins feeling bitter because he is a proud man but he would have come out better at the very least admitting that it was a close fight that could have gone either way, his rants made him look foolish.