By Chris Stein: Undefeated Joe Calzaghe (45-0, 32 KOs) survived a 1st round knockdown tonight to come back and pound out a 12-round split decision over former middleweight/light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (48-5, 32 KOs) at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Beyond the first round, there was little suspense in the fight for Hopkins, 43, quickly adopted the boring tried but true grappling/clinching style of former heavyweight champion John Ruiz, as Hopkins slowed the fight to a crawl with his two punches followed by a clinch style of fighting.
It was no match for Calzaghe’s speed and combinations, though Hopkins likely knew that he had no chance other than to take the fight into a boring wrestling match in order to have any kind of chance. The final scores of the fight were 114-113 for Hopkins, and 115-112 & 116-111 for Calzaghe. The 114-113 score was laughable, because Hopkins did little in the fight other than pot shotting and dulling up the bout, and couldn’t stand up to Calzaghe when the two stood at center ring. Te more truer score was the 116-111, but even that was being far to generous to Hopkins, who seemed to feign being hurt by low blows in the fight, as if looking for a hand out from the referee Joe Cortez, a referee noted for penalizing fighters for fouls.
It didn’t work, and it made Hopkins look disparate in the process. As most people had predicted, the fight was infinitely dull and try as he might to keep the fight at a distance, Calzaghe was unable to keep Hopkins from drapping himself on him every time the referee would separate the two of them. It was awful to watch, because it was Hopkins at his worst. I mean, he’d been fighting in this style for the past couple of years as he had started to slow down as a fighter, but tonight it was far worse than before.
Was the fight close? No, not if you were watching boxing. If you were watching UFC, then, yes, it was a close fight and you’d have to have given Hopkins the nod for his superior wrestling on the inside, but as far as boxing goes, it was some of the worst fighting I’ve witnessed in professional boxing for sometime, especially coming from a former champion.
In the early round, Hopkins used his attack and hold style, as usual, charging forward and throwing two punches and immediately grabbing a hold of Calzaghe to prevent him from unloading with flurries on the slower Hopkins. Once he had a hold of Calzaghe, Hopkins would pound him with one arm while holding him around the waist with the other. Just awful to look at it, and I couldn’t understand how the referee would allow him to get away with it round after round.
In the remaining round, whenever Clazaghe would get a briel glimpse of daylight between the two, he’d let loose with a brilliant flurry of shots, catching Hopkins a number of times in the matter of seconds. However, Hopkins would immediately close the distance and once again grab a hold of Calzaghe to prevent him from throwing any additional punches. Virtually all of the cleaner punches were landed by Calzaghe, especially in terms of combinations. Hopkins, when he was on offense, was reduced to throwing one punch at a time and then grabbing so as to prevent Calzaghe from throwing flurries.
In in all, Hopkins looked bad, nothing like he did early in his career. It was sad to see how he’s morphed into such an awful fighter to watch in his old age because he was once an appealing fighter to watch. Not anymore. I truly hope there isn’t a rematch because this fight wasn’t even slightly appealing this time, making the Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs, Oscar De Loya bout look interesting in comparison. Next time out, it could only get worse. For those who haven’t seen this fight as of yet, don’t waste your time.
I hope Hopkins get a clue and decides to retire because I don’t know what else is out there for him. I don’t see him having the skills to beat Chad Dawson, the best of the light heavyweights, and I don’t see Hopkins moving down to middleweight or up to cruiserweight. It’s time to hand them up. As for Calzaghe, he looked excellent despite what he had to work with all fight long. I’d like to see him against a real fighter, someone that comes to fight like Kelly Pavlik. That would be very interesting to watch and I would be willing to bet that it would be a fight of the year candidate in the end.
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