Hopkins defeats Cloud at 48; Thurman defeats Zaveck

By Boxing News - 03/09/2013 - Comments

hop9By Eric Thomas: 48-year-old Bernard Hopkins (53-6-2, 32 KO’s) became the oldest fighter to ever capture a world title by defeating IBF light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (24-1, 19 KO’s) by a 12 round unanimous decision to win another world title at the Barclays Center, in Brooklyn, New York, USA. The judges’ scored it 116-112, 117-111, 116-112.

Cloud suffered a cut over his left eye after getting hit with a left hook from Hopkins in the 6th. The referee made the mistake of ruling that the cut was caused by a head-butt. Thankfully this bad call didn’t effect the outcome of the fight.

Cloud fought a really poor fight from start to finish. He had talked about wanting to pressure Hopkins and throw a lot of punches to outwork him the same way that Joe Calzahge had, but instead Cloud let Hopkins fight on the outside and control the pace of the fight. That meant that Cloud had to make the most of the opportunities when Hopkins would come forward. Cloud didn’t have the accuracy to land his shots, and it looked bad with him missing all the time when trying to land head shots. Cloud failed to adapt and focus on throwing body punches, which is something he could have done. He also failed to stay on top of Hopkins to try and outwork him.

After the fight, Hopkins said “I told him I would only be around for four or five more years and he will definitely be champion again. But I’ve got a history of destroying young champions and you never see them again.”

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Unbeaten welterweight contender Keith Thurman (20-0, 18 KO’s) was extended the distance tonight in beating former IBF welterweight champion Jan Zaveck (32-2, 18 KO’s) by a lopsided 12 round unanimous decision in their WBO welterweight title eliminator

The final judges’ scores were 120-108, 120-108, 120-108. Thurman appeared to hurt Zaveck a number of times in the fight with his big power shots. However, Zaveck was good at covering up and preventing Thurman from being able to connect with his big power shots solidly.

Zaveck did very little 6th when he suddenly started opening up with big looping right hands that he was able to connect with. Thurman continued to dominate the action with his much busier style, but Zaveck had some good rounds in the 7th and 8th rounds. From the 9th round on, it was mostly all Thurman with him connecting constantly with big shots and a stinging jab. Thurman ended up throwing over 800 punches, and was able to land 45% of his power shots.

The win now makes Thurman the WBO mandatory challenger for WBO welterweight champion Timothy Bradley. If Thurman can get Bradley, it’ll be interesting to see how Bradley deals with Thurman’s power, size and high work rate.

Other boxing results on the card:

Michael Perez MD 7 Lonnie Smith
Eddie Gomez TKO 1 Javier Gomez
Frank Galarza TKO 2 Guillermo Ibarra
Stivens Bujaj UD 4 Zeferino Albino
Marcus Browne TKO 1 Josh Thorpe
Claude Staten Jr. UD 4 Mike Hill



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