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IBF light heavy champion Bernard Hopkins continued his assault against the aging effects of time, once again turning back the clock to post a victory over a much younger opponent, in this case Karo Murat, last night at Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall.
In contrast to the somewhat defensive and reserved nature of most of the fights from the elder-era Hopkins, this bout was a bit of a thriller as “The Alien” looked to score a knockout victory for the first time since halting Oscar De La Hoya in 2004.
In order to try and KO Murat, Hopkins had to extend himself offensively and take more chances then he generally does and in the process giving the challenger a better opportunity than usual to hit the defensively masterful champion.
Murat took the bull by the horns and came out swinging from the opening bell, scoring occasionally with hard shots but discovering that unlike many defensively oriented fighters, Hopkins has a solid chin as well as the uncanny ability to avoid getting caught completely flush.
The challenger was the busier man over the first three rounds, a good strategy when facing a 48 year old opponent, and had some success in the third with left hooks, although Hopkins was starting to land his vaunted and still very fast lead right hand.
The fourth frame saw the boxers vie for control but by the fifth, Murat started to tire from his spirited early campaign. Both men opted for a breather in the sixth before going back at it in the seventh, where Hopkins amped up his efforts and frustrated Murat, who lost a point for hitting on the break.
Hopkins went for broke in the eighth, belting Murat around the ring and cutting the challenger below the right eye. The ninth saw a resurgent Murat find the target with some good, motivated efforts but Hopkins took the punishment with no apparent damage.
The champion took off the tenth, using footwork and the jab to prevent Murat from taking an advantage. Things open back up a bit in the 11th frame with the tiring fighters marshalling up the effort to produce several good exchanges.
Hopkins somehow finds the reserves to muster an exciting 12th round, hurting Murat at times but was unable to finish off the man from Germany.
When the scorecards were tallied, Hopkins, 54-6-2 (32), won a UD over Murat, 25-2-1 (15), by the somewhat wide marks of 119-108, 119-108 and 117-110.
After proving that he still has world class abilities, Hopkins should be in line for a big fight in the first half of 2014, against a laundry list of potential opponents ranging from light middleweight Floyd Mayweather, middleweight Gennady Golovkin, super middleweight Andre Ward or light heavyweight Sergey Kovalev.
The undercard at Boardwalk Hall featured two prominent contests and WBO middleweight champion Peter Quillin and heavyweight contender Deontay Wilder both won their fights.
Despite knocking his opponent down in the second round, Quillin, 30-0 (22), was having a hard time with challenger Gabriel Rosado, 21-7 (13), who proved able to take WBO champ’s shots and was backing up Quillin successfully before getting cut above the left eye in the ninth.
By the tenth, Rosado’s injury was bad enough for the contest to be called off, producing a win for Quillin, who was leading on the cards by surprisingly wide margins of 90-80, 89-81 and 87-83.
Given the way the bout ended and the dubious nature of the scoring, expect a rematch.
Heavyweight KO king Wilder, 30-0 (30), downed Nicolai Firtha, 21-11-1 (8), twice in the opening round but also took a very hard shot in that frame from the limited Ohio man before going on to drop Firth again in the fourth, prompting referee Lindsey Page to call things off at 1:26 of the frame.
After winning all 30 of his bouts within the distance, expect a fairly big fight for WBC Continental Americas beltholder Wilder early next year. Some names from the WBC rankings that we could conceivably see in with Wilder are Tomasz Adamek, Johnathon Banks, Oldlanier Solis, Manuel Charr and Fres Oquendo.
Expect Banks, Oquendo and Charr in the first half of the year for the busy Wilder before the more formidable Solis and Adamek are tackled in the Autumn.
