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Bernard Hopkins’ twenty-first title defense ended with him on the losing side for the first time in twelve years. Jermain Taylor walked in victory and gained the undisputed middleweight title in only his fourth year as a professional. The judges’ tally had it 116-112 for Hopkins, 115-113 Taylor and 115-113 for Taylor. The main point in this fight should not be Taylor’s skills, but how Hopkins just miscalculated his way out of boxing royalty. Taylor took control in the first round as he landed a ramrod right hand across the face of Hopkins to send a little message, as Hopkins traditionally starts slow and remained gun-shy. The second and third rounds had Taylor doing more of the same with him popping his jab and scoring easily to keep Hopkins at bay. Hopkins was thinking this whole time that he was still in control and to his credit, remained poised and confident. With the crowd aiding Taylor’s charge, I had him up six rounds to one after seven, with Taylor landing the more aggressive shots and outworking Hopkins. Hopkins, as he always does, started to come on strong and started waiting for opportunities to counter-punch and was getting off some nice right crosses as well as showing his ring generalship.
Taylor had a nasty gash opened up above his left eye at the tip of his skull but surprisingly Taylor just shook it off and kept fighting hard. What I didn’t get here is that the crowd was surprisingly pro-Taylor. One exchange in the fourth round where he hit Hopkins with a shot that was not even flush drew a big ovation from the crowd as Hopkins went off balance and crashed into the ropes. After the eighth round, Taylor started to tire and Hopkins picked and chose his way into solid counters and nice jabs as Taylor backpedaled, just hoping to get out of the round. More of the same came in the tenth with Hopkins landing the cleaner more effective shots and establishing his plan overall. In the eleventh, Hopkins landed a big right hook upstairs that had Taylor on the ropes and was unloading some nice shots off his skull, but Taylor also fired back with a nice little flurry of his own that kept Hopkins honest.
I scored the twelfth round for Hopkins but it was a close round; Hopkins no doubt controlled the second part of the fight hands down and even had Taylor hurt maybe twice. Based on Taylor’s effort in the first half of the fight I think it should have been a draw at the most. I know I had picked Taylor to win and picked the correct decision, but Hopkins was imposing his will on Taylor towards the end of the fight. Overall, Hopkins’ plan worked but it was just a little too late. I scored the fight 114-114 even, but nevertheless there were many close rounds that could have gone either way. Bernard Hopkins should have a good argument that he won the fight because we don’t ever see a challenger given the benefit of the doubt such as Taylor was given tonight.
Taylor should bask in this opportunity as a well-deserved one; people thought that Hopkins would knock him out late and almost did. But the poise he showed even with blood flowing heavily from his hairline makes it easy to see this kid as the future of this division. The rematch will be very different, with Hopkins winning a unanimous decision but it is kind of ironic that Hopkins’ promoter lost a championship the same way Jermain Taylor won it, by letting the final four rounds slip through his fingers (I guess it was a bad omen having Shane Mosley sitting next to Oscar de la Hoya tonight).
People should not look down on Bernard Hopkins. He did not look like a forty-year-old man; he just looked like a fighter who was too confident in the early going to know he had to pick it up more. As they always say, it was not how Taylor won it but how Hopkins lost it.
David Shipman can be reached at davidshipman1@yahoo.com
