By Eric Thomas: Light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins (48-5-1, 32 KOs) is still understandably not happy with the outcome of his 12-round split decision loss to Joe Calzaghe on April 19th at the Thomas & Mack Center, in Las Vegas, Nevada. Specifically, Hopkins, 43, is unhappy with the scoring from judge Chuck Giampa, who happened to score the fight 116-111 for Calzaghe. That score, more than either of the two, seemed way off base considering the closeness of the fight. Hopkins is naturally upset about that score, for if Giampa had scored the fight in Hopkins’ favor, he would have won the fight.
Hopkins has reportedly suggested that the judges have occasional evaluations, to judge their competence to score the fight accurately. What Hopkins says seems to make a lot of sense, for when a person ages, their eyesight is often the first thing to go. In a sport that involves fast punches and furious action, much of it coming with a blur, it takes especially keen eyesight in order to capture all the punches being exchanges between two fighters. Hopkins may have a point, for in other professions like airline pilots, for instance, they have tests and a mandatory retirement age. Perhaps boxing needs to same, at least that way there can never be a doubt whether a fighter was given a bad decision on account of the age of one particular judge.
I agree with everything that Hopkins says about this, because he clearly appeared to have won the fight by at least a couple of rounds. I can see him winning it maybe by one round, if I were being especially generous to Calzaghe, but in reality Hopkins looked to have won the fight by 2-3 rounds. The problem for Hopkins, unfortunately, is that he can’t get this fight back and at his age, 43, he doesn’t have a lot of time to continue on in the sport before his age starts catching up to him. Even if he does fight on, none of the opponents can match up to the excitement that Calzaghe brought into the ring on the 19th.
That’s perhaps the most difficult thing for Hopkins to have to deal with – not being able to correct the loss by getting the fight overturned or at the very least, getting a rematch out of it. I’d personally like to see the fight overturned but I don’t see it happening every. For that matter, I don’t see Calzaghe every fighting Hopkins again either. That was Hopkins one and only shot at Calzaghe, who intends on moving on and likely fighting Roy Jones Jr. next. Hopkins doesn’t figure in on Calzaghe’s plans, no matter how close the fight was form most people. Hopkins, if it’s any help, needs to find solace with the small number of fans, like me, who saw that he actually was the winner of the fight, not Calzaghe.
It doesn’t matter if one or two judges got it wrong, as long as a fairly substantial body of fans believe that Hopkins won the fight, it should be more than enough for him. Forget about trying for rematch with Calzaghe, Hopkins should move on and attempt to take on one of the better middleweights like Kelly Pavlik. I’d forget about any other fighters in the middleweight division or the light heavyweight division other than Pavlik and Chad Dawson. If Hopkins can beat either of those two guys, it will completely erase his controversial loss to Calzaghe. In the end, Hopkins’ legacy will be greater than Calzaghe’s anyway, given the length of Hopkins’ career. Hopkins has accomplished already much more than Calzaghe can ever hope to.
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