Hopkins Defeats Eastman.

Showing why he is rated by most as the world’s top pound-for-pound fighter, Bernard Hopkins retained his middleweight championship tonight for a record twentieth time against a game challenger in Howard Eastman. The challenger was aggressive and powerful early on and managed to land some good shots that hurt the champion throughout the fight but it wasn’t enough to overcome Hopkins’ classy counter shots and prolific work with the left-hook. Eastman spent much of the fight trying to land

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his vaunted right hand, but the evasive tactics followed by effective countering from Hopkins was too much in the end. Eastman showed why he deserved his chance at the title, but Hopkins, perhaps now has persuaded even the most vocal of his critics that he deserves to be ranked as the world’s best fighter.

The final scores were as follows: 119-110, 117-111 and 116-112.