Boxing Ringside Report: Taylor – Hopkins II
Click for larger image © Mark DeSisto / SaddoBoxing.com
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This past Saturday night the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas, NV hosted “No Respectâ€, the much anticipated middleweight championship rematch between Jermain Taylor and Bernard Hopkins. Unfortunately for those in attendance, and particularly, those paying for the fight on PPV at home, there was simply too much respect between the fighters to even surpass the average standards of their first contest. The flow of the bout and the judges scoring of the fight was quite similar to the first one pairing between the two middleweights, a questionable decision win for Jermain Taylor.
Instead of a split decision as in the first tussle, this time the judges all had the same 115-113 score, a unanimous seven rounds to five for the reigning champion Taylor. The soon to be forty one year old Hopkins was criticized much for starting slowly in the first fight but did much the same in the rematch and was once again unable to knock Taylor out.
As a nice warm-up to the main event, there were two undercard fights of note. The first saw Ike “Bazooka†Quartey continue his intriguing comeback against tough Mexican brawler Carlos Bojorquez. Many will remember the elite fighting Ghanian for his reign of terror thru the welterweight division in the mid 90’s, in which he held the WBA title from 1994-1999, including a TKO victory over the talented Vince Phillips.
Two closely contested title fight losses in 1999 and 2000 to the best of the best, Oscar De La Hoya and Fernando Vargas, seemed to discourage Quartey and sent him away from The Sweet Science for nearly five years. Junior middleweight Bojorquez was the third opponent on Quartey’s busy 2005 comeback trail and Ike’s pugilistic pedigree was on display for fight fans.
Quartey’s famous “Bazooka†jab had the game Borquez’s face reddened early in the bout. Borquez constantly came forward and Quartey was content to fight off the back foot and counterpunch, often off the ropes. Borquez’s game plan appeared to be to get inside and crowd his much harder punching opponent, bully him into the ropes and turn the fight into a brawl.
The crowd was entertained and cheering as Borquez had his moments and although missing with too many punches, he landed an occasional good shot, making it interesting early in the fight. Quartey’s hard counterpunching hooks and uppercuts had to be discouraging for Borquez, who was cut around the eye by the fifth round and being looked over by the doctor.
Quartey really started to take over by the sixth round against the very courageous Borquez. Anytime the fight went to the outside, Quartey dominated with the powerful jab and started to work better and land more effectively on the inside, as Borquez was now slowing down and had even less steam on his punches. The onslaught continued and by the end of round nine you could see referee Joe Cortez in Borquez’s corner, likely telling them that their fighter was taking too much punishment.
With less than a minute to go in the fight in round ten, Cortez had seen enough and wisely stopped the fight. Carlos Bojorquez showed that he was a true Mexican warrior that may even be too tough for his own good, in suffering his eighth defeat against twenty five wins and six draws. Quartey’s record improves to an impressive thirty seven wins, with two losses and one draw, and the boxing world now has a truly needed, legitimate contender to add to its junior middleweight division.
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Contact Mark DeSisto: bostonsmarkd@yahoo.com