Richardson glad Hopkins didn’t get hurt in knockout loss

By Boxing News - 12/20/2016 - Comments

Image: Richardson glad Hopkins didn’t get hurt in knockout loss

By Eric Baldwin: Bernard Hopkins’ former trainer Naazim Richardson was happy that B-Hop didn’t get hurt last Saturday night in his 8th round TKO loss to Joe Smith Jr. (23-1, 19 KOs) in their fight on HBO from the Forum in Inglewood, California. Somehow, Hopkins slide out of the ring in round 8 after taking four hard shots to the head from Smith Jr.

Hopkins fell on his back on the floor outside of the ring. He said his ankle was hurt and couldn’t get back into the ring. Hopkins didn’t like receiving a knockout.

Hopkins didn’t say it, but it appears that he might have been hoping for another no contest like his fight against Chad Dawson. That’s about the only other way that Hopkins could have avoided a loss. Smith Jr. couldn’t be disqualified because he didn’t shove Hopkins out of the ring. He punched him out of the ring.

Richardson said this to Fighthype.com about Hopkins’ loss to Smith Jr:

“My thing is I didn’t want the bull to hurt Bernard; I didn’t want Bernard to hurt the bull,” said Richardson.

Smith Jr. did appear to hurt Hopkins when he knocked him out of the ring. He hit Hopkins with four hard shots while he was trapped against the ropes. All four of the punches landed to the head of Hopkins. That’s quite unusual. The first big left hand that Smith caught Hopkins with appeared to stun him enough to where he couldn’t defend himself.

Smith then landed three more big power shots before Hopkins slide out of the ring. The last shot that Smith landed was a wicked left hook to the head of Hopkins. That punch looked painful to watch because Hopkins took it while he was defenseless and falling out of the ring. Hopkins says his ankle was giving him some problems.

It didn’t look like Hopkins had made contact with his ankle against anything while he was falling. His ankle and both legs were up in the air. It was Hopkins’ back plus his head that made contact with the floor.

Hopkins made a mistake by going up against the ropes and letting Smith Jr. fight him from that area of the ring. Hopkins had done that many times in the fight last Saturday, and he gotten away with it. Hopkins’ luck ran out in the 8th.

Even if Hopkins hadn’t been knocked out of the ring, he looked like he was tiring and starting to take punishment. There were too many rounds remaining in the fight for Hopkins to survive. Smith was catching Hopkins more and more starting in the 7th. He was getting to him. Hopkins’ rusty boxing skills weren’t able to save him against the much younger Smith Jr.

Richardson thinks that Hopkins’ trainer John David Jackson is going to try and get Sergey Kovalev, who he also trains, to fight Smith Jr. now. Richardson thinks it’s going to make Hopkins look worse if Kovalev destroys Smith Jr. It might happen, but at least Smith Jr. will get a big payday.

It would be better for Smith Jr. to get a big payday against Kovalev or Andre Ward than it would for him to fight one of the many 175lb contenders that are now chomping at the bit to get at him and knock him out. If Smith fights someone good like Artur Beterbiev, then it’s probably going to be show over for Smith. His little winning streak over the bigger name fighters will be over. The money that Smith Jr. makes against the contenders won’t be nearly as good as he could get if he can get a title shot against the winner of the Ward vs. Kovalev II fight if he can get it.

“John David Jackson going to run over to the other corner and they gonna call Kovalev up and put Joe Smith in front of Kovalev and Kovalev going to knock him into the balcony somewhere and that’s going to be even more disrespect to Bernard,” said Richardson.

Jackson isn’t in charge of the match-making for Kovalev. He’s promoted by Main Events. I wouldn’t be surprised if Main Events is thinking more in terms of getting Kovalev two more fights against Ward. The money that the two fighters can make just fighting each other is too good for them not to fight at least twice more.

Why fight other guys for a lot less when they can fight each other a couple more times before the boxing public wants to see them fight other guys. Smith Jr. would do well to take it easy while he waits for the smoke to clear from the Ward-Kovalev II rematch. As long as Smith Jr. is still winning, he should get a title shot soon.

With Smith’s wins over Hopkins and Fonfara, he’s now better known than a lot of the contenders in the division even if he’s not as talented as them. It would be news if Smith can get a fight against the Ward-Kovalev II winner without him having to risk his neck against one of the top contenders like Beterbiev or Oleksandr Gvozdyk. Those two fighters are very skilled in terms of their boxing ability, and they’re not going to do something silly like fight with their backs against the ropes like Hopkins did. Those guys are too polished to make that kind of a sloppy mistake. It’s just surprising that Hopkins slipped up by fighting against the ropes. You would think that Hopkins was wise enough to know that he couldn’t afford to fight that way against Smith Jr. and get away with it.