Tweet
I can’t believe I’m typing this, but... I thought Hopkins won tonight. I was originally going to say he was "robbed", as with another thread on this page, but as it was a close split decision in a close fight then it doesn’t quite qualify as a Vegas decision.
When Hopkins’s face went from its usual set of smug self-satisfaction to shock, to the look of a little boy who’s just had his favourite toy taken away, I expected to be delighted. But somehow I couldn’t be, knowing that – for however much I may dislike him – I had Hopkins winning the fight 115-114.
Fair play to the old man, he weathered the storm to clearly dominate those last three rounds, where a rapidly fading Taylor seemed to be hurt on several occasions. But now Hopkins’s major selling point – a forty-year-old man who is clocking up twenty defences – is over, it seemed sadly inevitable that the younger, better-looking, more exciting and far more marketable Taylor was going to be put on the throne almost no matter what. Hopkins didn’t lose his crown tonight, it was taken off him.
A last word on Hopkins: I’ve often said I don’t rate his style, or rate him as a boxer. He actually brings a good deal of talents to the ring, as demonstrated tonight: underrated punching power, a boxing brain, good chin. It’s just seeing him ensconced as the p4p master is something of a stretch. Yet saying I don’t like him I often get told I don’t like boxing or appreciate "the sweet science". I disagree. I admire in anyone the ability to jab, feint, use footwork and ring generalmanship. It’s just that with Hopkins it’s becoming all he does, like a master illusionist rummaging through an ever-decreasing bag of tricks. His showboating in the middle rounds looked like an act of desperation tonight, but I thought he pulled it off in the end... just. In fact, I had Hopkins winning the entire second half of the fight, even if rounds 7-9 were very close.
Measure a typical Hopkins round (obviously this doesn’t include rounds 10-12 of tonight’s session) and it usually breaks down as something like this: two minutes of running (this is the thing that bothers me most: Hopkins’s footwork looks dreadful. It might be effective, but aesthetically, because he’s so flat-footed with it, it just looks like running); half a minute of feints (which, with no real substance behind it, amounts to little more than trickery); and half a minute of single shot pot-shotting. Bernard likes to steal rounds, avoiding physical conflict not with the artistry of a ring master, but by negatively avoiding conflict for the vast majority of a round, knowing that he can take a round by jumping in with single shots. If a win’s a win, then he’s a winner. But it somehow seems incredibly cheap and unsporting.
What also surprises me is how dirty a fighter Hopkins can be, with several examples of rabbit punching and hitting and holding tonight, including a couple of solid blows to the back of Taylor’s head. In another thread I was accused of not liking Hopkins due to being "British", even though I hadn’t raised my nationality or Hopkin’s in any of my posts. As this is a US-based site, being subjected to racism like that is something that I’ve come to accept as par for the course, though this does also make me wonder... what with all the scorn directed towards "dirty" fighters on this side of the Atlantic, if Bernard was European, would he really get so much praise on Boxing Scene?
So... I don’t really care for the guy, I don’t like his style or the way he wins. But he did okay tonight, and I was actually saddened to see him lose not in the ring, but outside it. A shame.
Oh... one last thing: was the undercard any good? I was about half-way through the superfeather weight bout watching a guy with gold trunks start to tire, then I woke to see highlights of what looked a visceral McCullogh match. The Hopkins bout didn't start till 4:45am UK time, and I'd dropped off.
When Hopkins’s face went from its usual set of smug self-satisfaction to shock, to the look of a little boy who’s just had his favourite toy taken away, I expected to be delighted. But somehow I couldn’t be, knowing that – for however much I may dislike him – I had Hopkins winning the fight 115-114.
Fair play to the old man, he weathered the storm to clearly dominate those last three rounds, where a rapidly fading Taylor seemed to be hurt on several occasions. But now Hopkins’s major selling point – a forty-year-old man who is clocking up twenty defences – is over, it seemed sadly inevitable that the younger, better-looking, more exciting and far more marketable Taylor was going to be put on the throne almost no matter what. Hopkins didn’t lose his crown tonight, it was taken off him.
A last word on Hopkins: I’ve often said I don’t rate his style, or rate him as a boxer. He actually brings a good deal of talents to the ring, as demonstrated tonight: underrated punching power, a boxing brain, good chin. It’s just seeing him ensconced as the p4p master is something of a stretch. Yet saying I don’t like him I often get told I don’t like boxing or appreciate "the sweet science". I disagree. I admire in anyone the ability to jab, feint, use footwork and ring generalmanship. It’s just that with Hopkins it’s becoming all he does, like a master illusionist rummaging through an ever-decreasing bag of tricks. His showboating in the middle rounds looked like an act of desperation tonight, but I thought he pulled it off in the end... just. In fact, I had Hopkins winning the entire second half of the fight, even if rounds 7-9 were very close.
Measure a typical Hopkins round (obviously this doesn’t include rounds 10-12 of tonight’s session) and it usually breaks down as something like this: two minutes of running (this is the thing that bothers me most: Hopkins’s footwork looks dreadful. It might be effective, but aesthetically, because he’s so flat-footed with it, it just looks like running); half a minute of feints (which, with no real substance behind it, amounts to little more than trickery); and half a minute of single shot pot-shotting. Bernard likes to steal rounds, avoiding physical conflict not with the artistry of a ring master, but by negatively avoiding conflict for the vast majority of a round, knowing that he can take a round by jumping in with single shots. If a win’s a win, then he’s a winner. But it somehow seems incredibly cheap and unsporting.
What also surprises me is how dirty a fighter Hopkins can be, with several examples of rabbit punching and hitting and holding tonight, including a couple of solid blows to the back of Taylor’s head. In another thread I was accused of not liking Hopkins due to being "British", even though I hadn’t raised my nationality or Hopkin’s in any of my posts. As this is a US-based site, being subjected to racism like that is something that I’ve come to accept as par for the course, though this does also make me wonder... what with all the scorn directed towards "dirty" fighters on this side of the Atlantic, if Bernard was European, would he really get so much praise on Boxing Scene?
So... I don’t really care for the guy, I don’t like his style or the way he wins. But he did okay tonight, and I was actually saddened to see him lose not in the ring, but outside it. A shame.
Oh... one last thing: was the undercard any good? I was about half-way through the superfeather weight bout watching a guy with gold trunks start to tire, then I woke to see highlights of what looked a visceral McCullogh match. The Hopkins bout didn't start till 4:45am UK time, and I'd dropped off.
...thats true.
Comment