Comments Thread For: Kovalev Not Focused on KO, But Aims To 'Crush' Hopkins

[bojangles1987]

The whole fight was a joke. Hopkins was playing around throughout, trying to be entertaining to land a big fight.



Shumenov won his title against Campillo. Nevertheless, Hopkins took the fight seriously and schooled him.

No, Shumenov lost to Campillo and got a gift.

[mistermartin]

its the slick boxers that have given hops trouble. he usually handles the flat footed punchers well but he may just be a little too old finally to pull this one off. mad props tho if he does

Slick fighters don't trouble X...The only thing that has proven to be Ether to B-hop is big athletic fighters Ala RJJ & chad Dawson if u wanna say him. But I was at the Dawson fight. That fight looked razor close in person. I did not see a convincing win. But either way the style matchup of Dawson is all wrong for Bernard. & That's y he's been my favorite fighter for the last 15 yrs...bc he's a G & took the fight anyway...Just like this Kovalev bout.

[mistermartin]

Er dude, you should watch that fight through again. Calzaghe was mostly missing - the HBO punch stats were so far out in this fight - and Hopkins was landing all the best punches.

If ever it was said that a fighter outworked another, this was it in a nutshell. Calzaghe won rounds where he barely scored a clean punch - and got caught many times - purely because he threw a lot of volume. I think Hopkins deserved the W, but you have to credit Calzaghe for not letting BHop slow him down as most other fighters do when they start missing like that.

What Joe did that was key was to be the first to the punch and smother Hopkins, which took that eye catching lead right away from him. A lot of BHop's best work was short inside fighting that is hard to spot unless you are on the correct side of the action. (Conversely, if you are throwing a lot of shots, from some angles they look like they land when they are actually blocked or missing.)

I don't buy the arguments about Hopkins dragging Calzaghe up in weight. BHop was a career middleweight, and Calzaghe a career super middle. They looked the same size.

good post. Nard is my favorite fighter...I wanted to give him that win & did at first blush. But at second viewing. I can see where Joe won the contest. Heis probably the only fighter I can think of where Bernard wasn't able to dictate the pace. Joe had an awkward style that he fully mastered. I gotta respect that. But also share ur view of the action.