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By John Hively - Bernard Hopkins showed his usual unsportsman-like conduct after he got his butt kicked by Joe Calzaghe last Saturday in Las Vegas. After the bout, he did his best to convince his audience that he'd won, that he had given Joe a boxing lesson, that the decision was a bad one. He refused to give the man, who had so obviously trounced him, any credit whatsoever for landing 232 times to the head and body over twelve-rounds.
This fight was a little more one-sided than the judges decreed, at least from my point of view. True, Hopkins was competitive. He floored Calzaghe in the first round with a right cross, and he won a few rounds afterwards; and a few other rounds were difficult to score. But he was out hit nearly two to one over the course of the fight.
The seventh, eighth and tenth rounds demonstrated how badly those 232 punches slowed 'The Executioner' down.
I gave Hopkins the opening round 10-8 based on his knockdown. During the early rounds, Hopkins counterpunched, but not all that effectively. In the second round, he landed a nice right cross. Hopkins was landing less than Joe, but Max Kellerman suggested he was landing more effective punches. The commentators repeated this throughout the fight, but I have my doubts that it was true. For example, Calzaghe landed a crackling left hook flush to Hopkins jaw in the second heat. If what Kellerman said was true, that all began to change in the third stanza, as Calzaghe began landing not only more punches than Bernard, but also clouts that were just as effective as anything landed by Hopkins, except for the right cross that floored Joe in the first.
Bernard’s primary offence was to throw one punch at a time, then clinch. Sometimes it seemed as though he was leading with his head. This tactic did not work very well. [details]
This fight was a little more one-sided than the judges decreed, at least from my point of view. True, Hopkins was competitive. He floored Calzaghe in the first round with a right cross, and he won a few rounds afterwards; and a few other rounds were difficult to score. But he was out hit nearly two to one over the course of the fight.
The seventh, eighth and tenth rounds demonstrated how badly those 232 punches slowed 'The Executioner' down.
I gave Hopkins the opening round 10-8 based on his knockdown. During the early rounds, Hopkins counterpunched, but not all that effectively. In the second round, he landed a nice right cross. Hopkins was landing less than Joe, but Max Kellerman suggested he was landing more effective punches. The commentators repeated this throughout the fight, but I have my doubts that it was true. For example, Calzaghe landed a crackling left hook flush to Hopkins jaw in the second heat. If what Kellerman said was true, that all began to change in the third stanza, as Calzaghe began landing not only more punches than Bernard, but also clouts that were just as effective as anything landed by Hopkins, except for the right cross that floored Joe in the first.
Bernard’s primary offence was to throw one punch at a time, then clinch. Sometimes it seemed as though he was leading with his head. This tactic did not work very well. [details]
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