Comments Thread For: Hopkins: I Wanted a Knockdown in the 12th, not Survival

[SUBZER0ED]

That's why Kovalev didn't any risk in rushing onto Hopkins earlier... Kovalev knew that Hopkins would try to wear him down and possibly look for a lake KO in the championship rounds -- rounds that Kovalev never fought before... On another hand, Kovalev waited, all night long, for Hopkins to step forward in order to throw something big and counter him on such a move... But Hopkins didn't take such a risk either...

I think Hopkins' tentative approach had two purposes. First, after Bernard tried to use his sneaky right in the first round, Kovalev read him and dropped him with a beautiful over-hand right counter. This put Hopkins on high alert, so he tried to execute plan b, which was to retreat with the hope to set a counter-punch trap of his own off the ropes. Kovalev was smart though, and Hopkins even said himself that Sergey would punch and then take a step back. This caused Hopkins to constantly reset, because the opportunity to land a counter kept disappearing. Much credit to John David Jackson for using his thorough knowldege of Hopkins' style to prepare Kovalev properly.

[Baltimore]

Noting but respect for B-Hop and that 12th round. He knew he could have ran and held and still had the crowd cheer for him when it was over, but no he wanted to give one last realistic shot at still winning. Looked like for a split second he had a real chance at pulling off a miraculous last round win.