By Allan Fox: Last Saturday’s fight between 51-year-old aging star Bernard Hopkins (55-8-2, 32 KOs) and #2 WBC light heavyweight contender Joe Smith Jr. (23-1, 19 KOs) brought in good viewing numbers on HBO Boxing. The fight averaged 934,000 viewers with a peak of 1,035 viewers, according to RingTV.
This is excellent news for Golden Boy Promotions, who staged the card at the Forum in Inglewood, California. This was Hopkins’ farewell bout for his 28-year pro career. The good viewing numbers Hopkins brought in might want to make him reconsider his retirement from the sport.
The fans still want to see B-Hop fight. In hindsight, Hopkins picked the wrong guy for him to return to the ring against after a 2-year layoff from boxing. Hopkins should have come back by taking a tune-up opponent. Fighting a top contender like Smith Jr. was Hopkins asking for trouble. You don’t do that at Hopkins’ age.
The fight outcome didn’t go in Hopkins’ favor though, as he somehow fell out of the ring while he was getting worked over by Smith Jr. in the 8th. Hopkins was leaning against the ropes, trying to dodge Smith Jr’s power shots. Hopkins’ defense had been very good all fight long, but it wasn’t good right before he was knocked out of the ring.
Hopkins got hit repeatedly by Smith’s best shots. Smith Jr. hit Hopkins five straight times to the head. Four of the punches came while Hopkins was backed against the ropes. The punch that led to Hopkins backing up against the ropes was a pulverizing left to the head. Hopkins fell out of the ring like an old ship sinking into the ocean.
Some boxing fans that saw the incident felt that Hopkins was looking for a way out of the fight. They compared it to how Hopkins fell out of the ring in his first fight against Robert Allen many years ago in 1998. That was a VERY STRANGE fight in which referee Mills Lane pulled Hopkins and Allen apart from a clinch. Hopkins then fell out of the ring and suffered an injury.
That fight was ruled a 2nd round ‘no contest.’ Years later, Hopkins was involved with another fight that ended in a 2nd round ‘no contest’ when he fought Chad Dawson. Hopkins fell onto the back of Dawson while he was leaning forward. When Dawson straightened up, Hopkins fell on the canvas and injured his shoulder and couldn’t continue fighting.
If the Hopkins-Smith Jr. is B-Hop’s final fight of his long career, I don’t think it ended well for Hopkins. Getting knocked out of the ring and losing by a TKO in that manner is disappointing. Hopkins had 20 seconds to get back inside the ring, but he chose not to return. Hopkins says he was injured, and you have to believe him. But it’s still was obviously not the best way for Hopkins to end his career. He spoke of how he was frustrating Smith Jr. by making him miss with his power shots. Hopkins felt that he was going to come on strong in the later part of the fight to take the decision win over Smith Jr. It’s too bad we didn’t get the chance to find out if Hopkins would be able to win the fight by going to the scorecards after 12 rounds.
Hopkins was trailing on two of the judges’ scorecards by the scores 67-66, 69-64 for Smith Jr. The third judge had Hopkins ahead by the score 67-66. It was still a very winnable fight for Hopkins on two of the judges’ cards. Hopkins looked good in the 7th. It was just in that one part of the 8th that Hopkins had problems.
In the ratings for the undercard, featherweight Joseph Diaz Jr’s fight against Horacio Garcia averaged 644,000 viewers with a peak of 707,000 viewers. This was a one-sided fight with Diaz Jr. (23-0, 13 KOs) dominating Garcia (30-2-1, 22 KOs) and beating him by a 10 round unanimous decision by the scores 100-90, 100-90 and 100-90. It was good match-making for Diaz Jr. to be matched against Garcia.
WBO cruiserweight champion Oleksandr Usyk’s fight against Thabiso Mchunu (17-3, 11 KOs) averaged 560,000 viewers with a peak of 645,000 viewers. Usyk stopped Mchunu in the 9th round. Mchunu was down three times in the fight.