Hopkins-Taylor: History Can Wait.

Bernard Hopkins cast himself as the people’s champion, a proclamation that was perhaps nevermore poignant than in the fight’s preceding weeks as he shared promotional duties with boxing golden boys Oscar de la Hoya and Jermain Taylor, fighters bred for stardom, walking a designated route upon which they would make no mistakes.

Click for larger image © Sergio Martinez

Hopkins made a mistake and paid for it with his freedom. His boxing story began not in an Olympic trial, but a criminal one. Hopkins resembled the people when set against such flawlessly marketed specimens, but at times, he managed to alienate even those whom he believed to represent. Perhaps his staunch principles that beggared our belief out of the ring came to haunt Hopkins in the ring. His performances in recent years were not as much executions as they were slow deaths, and yet he sought to combat criticism for fighting a mere minute of each round by fighting for only thirty seconds against Taylor. Before the fight, Hopkins stood alone atop the boxing world at the zenith of an immaculate achievement few could comprehend. Did such dizzying heights impair his senses, seducing him to believe he had beaten the system and that his inevitability as a champion was unbreakable? Arrogance has upended many a great fighter but moreover on this night, boxing itself reminded us that no fighter wins the battle against its humbling gravity.

No torch passed, nor was it taken, instead it remains alight in our consciousness and will likely burn brightly until a rematch occurs. Do not look to Nevada State Athletic Commissioner Marc Ratner for absolution in this case; he went mute when Manny Pacquiao should have become the unified featherweight champion last year but for one failed judgment. One point separated Hopkins from a draw, but those such as Ratner know that boxing demands the rematch, and when it happens, it will happen in Las Vegas. Money talks and bullshit is its conversation piece. Anyway, there is a good reason why the old joke says that ten-thousand lawyers chained together at the bottom of the ocean is a good start; boxers need little encouragement to file suit these days so one slip from a major state in that direction and we will be up to our eyeballs in appeals.

That you cannot please everybody is a truism of severe understatement in the boxing game. There are no unified perceptions on achievement and the briefest data collation from boxing message boards reveals that most do not know what they want or expect or how to respond to what happens. Whether “tis nobler in boxing to dominate one weight class or challenge oneself in others is a question not sure to find an answer. The problem pertaining to the Hopkins-Taylor fight seems to be one of aesthetic. Hopkins came close to overwhelming Taylor in the final three rounds, but it is a fallacy to suggest that the supposed “championship” rounds carry more value in our scoring system than those preceding them. “The championship rounds” is a term used to emphasize the importance of closing the show to a fighter. In this case, Hopkins won all of the championship rounds, but lost at least seven of the previous nine, thus losing the fight.

Just as the challenger must earn the championships, a champion must fight to retain his recognition. All too often, the boxing industry applies a logic that pressures a challenger into producing a spectacle, one in which he must rip the titles away from the old guard. Why? If such a logic were to be followed through to its end, why not let them tear at each other for twenty, no thirty rounds, or until one of them lay dead? We have rules and a scoring system to separate ourselves from those brutal beginnings and for once, boxing stood up and declared itself immune from the magnitude of the occasion and the stature of the champion; it scored the fight just and awarded victory to the right man. Yet, once again, boxing fans rail against the outcome presented to them, forgetting their desire for such instances of justice in quieter moments.

Hopkins’ loss is the best thing for boxing overall, and though he may not realize it now, it is the best thing for Hopkins himself. Now he has something to fight for that reaches beyond a mere parade of statistics; something that we will not have to wait for the distant gaze of history to acknowledge. Taylor’s win was not robbery, it was barely even petty theft, but Hopkins will look upon it as Grand Larceny, a stain upon his masterpiece. Hopkins will revisit the brutal gym environment and punish himself once again so that he can exact a vengeance so complete, a destruction so cruel as to render all verdicts useless. There is no higher drama than that of the championship fight and though both men proved that its sacred territory is one in which they both deserve a place, many more questions require answers. Wounds will heal, passions will boil and the boxing earth will tremble before the end. With a present as vital as this, history can wait.

Jim Cawkwell can be reached at jimcawkwell@yahoo.co.uk