Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jnr ready for retirement after farcical fight
There are some things in sport that nobody wants to see. Sure, the 1993 battle between Roy Jones Jnr and Bernard Hopkins was a great spectacle and well deserved a rematch, but to have it 17 years later? The phrase “missing the boat” springs to mind.
It’s akin to seeing if Sir Geoff Hurst could still cut it in the Premier League. They are obviously the same people, but the speed, finesse and power have gone. Granted, it does engender a certain peculiar interest, in the same way people crane their necks at a pile up on the motorway, but from a boxing perspective does anybody really want to see it?
Jones Jnr was going into this fight off the back of a defeat to Danny Green who at one stage he would have dispatched within one or two rounds. Jones Jnr was arguably the best fighter of his generation, however the former multi-weight world champion has lost six of his last 11 since 2004 and at 41 years old his best days are way behind him.
As for Hopkins he is the elder statesman of the two at 45 years of age. Hopkins is one of those strange sporting anomalies who has improved with age, the “fine wine-syndrome sportsman” if you will. However even Hopkins has a sell-by-date and 11 of his last 12 fights have gone the distance. He may have been fighting boxers of the calibre of Oscar Del La Hoya, Joe Calzaghe and Kelly Pavlik but for a man who once prided himself on his finishing power, Hopkins is not the fighter he once was. “The Executioner” has been boring people to submission rather than using the firing squad.
The bout was a farce from the very start; the 6,792 crowd was testament to that fact. If it was 10 years ago, this match-up would have attracted ten times the audience. To put it into perspective they got a lower turn out than Luton v Grays Athletic pulled in for their Blue Square Premier match this weekend.
Both these two fighters could lay claim to being the pound-for-pound best at some point in their careers. Jones Jnr was once the most exciting fighter on the planet, a show-boater and a powerful finisher with lightning-fast reactions and a huge fan base. From the first bell against Hopkins he looked shot. Gone are the bolo punches and the fast combinations, in fact he tried a head faint early on, once he would have disappeared like a ghost, now he gets his head across at the speed of a tired snail. The movements gone, the power gone, it’s a sad sight.
Hopkins can still grind out a win, in terms of old boxers he’s got to be one of the best for battling to a high level, but no-one can go on forever. He slowly edges around the ring just using his jab and occasionally throwing a non-lethal haymaker. He’s worked out a way to fight without using speed or power, but it could see him really come a cropper one day.
The mess of a fight went the distance; the two circled each other for the majority of the 12 rounds looking old. They clinched and wrestled and did everything but box. The studious Hopkins kept slowly moving forward and working the jab, which was ultimately why he won by such a clear distance. It was like watching Jones Jnr in slow motion, he had nothing in the tank, the best he could muster was a couple of rabbit punches in the sixth and eighth rounds, which saw him deducted a couple of points. In the ninth the pair stood in the middle of the ring looking shattered, all Jones Jnr could do was raise his gloves, which Hopkins duly hit as if he was doing pad work, such was the lack of intensity in the fight. By the end of the 12th the few who had turned up were desperate for this sorry affair to be over, Hopkins doing the most of the little work on display.
Compare that to their explosive 1993 fight, a high-energy and high-class bout between two men on their way to the top. They bounced around the ring throwing vicious straights with consummate ease and working hard for the full 12 rounds. It was a classic fight of skill and strategy and was arguably the defining moment in Jones Jnr’s career, if not Hopkins. Sundays fight was incomparable.
After taking victory in the farcical rematch, Hopkins collapsed in his dressing room and was rushed to hospital. He promptly came out and announced he wants to challenge David Haye for the heavyweight world championship. That’s right Bernard, you struggle to beat a shot veteran, you then get rushed to hospital, so why not move up a division and have a crack at the heavyweight champion of the world?
Really these two should retire. There is not enough control as to when fighters throw in the towel for good. George Foreman came back at 45 and conquered the heavyweights, but really what’s the point? Hopkins and Jones Jnr will go down as top class boxers, but they are affecting their legacies and surely they don’t need the money anymore.
It’s time to call it a day guys, if I want to see granddad’s fight I will just head down to Scrabble night at my local care home.
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