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Re: An Excellent Read On Bernard Hopkins, The Best Technician of Our Generation
“Watch this now, watch!” ‘Coach Familton’ ordered as I drifted off in thought while scribbling in my notebook. “He’s stepping on every punch. I don’t look at his upper body, I look at the feet. He steps with every punch, steps in, and then right back out. In and out; in and out. I love it!
“Then he hooks off the jab. Another thing you don’t see done properly anymore. Look how tight his hook is. Everything is close to his body as he delivers it. His arms aren’t way out to his side. Are you watching this, Doug? Look at that, a triple jab! And he steps with each jab. Beautiful!
“Oh my God! A feint and hook! Watch this stuff, man, stop writing! Just watch and learn. Watch and learn.”
Because Coach Familton said so, I put down my notebook and focused 100 percent of my attention on the master in the ring, who was now working mitts with Roach.
“There’s nice rhythm on his punches,” Familton said. “Did you notice that? Don’t just watch, listen. Bap, bap, bap. Bap, bap, bap. I always listen to the cadence the punches make on the bag or mitts.”
Co-trainer John David Jackson, a former world titlist (who Hopkins beat 10 years ago), took over the mitts in order to practice certain moves to execute vs. a southpaw.
“Look how quickly he can move in or side to side on a southpaw,” Familton pointed out. Seconds later, Hopkins accidentally nailed Jackson with a left hook.
Hopkins is indeed deceptively quick in maneuvering and positioning himself about the ring. I had to keep reminding myself that he’s in his forties.
“His legs look good in training,” said Familton. “The only thing you don’t know, at his age, is how his legs are going to look or hold out over 12 rounds if Wright tries to press him.”
That’s the only way I can envision a Wright victory. I think the 35-year-old veteran must take the fight to the 42-year-old veteran and simply outwork the older man for three minutes of each round. Wright is usually content to lay back on the outside and work everything off his jab, but the southpaw technician has been known to step up the heat when he needed it as he did in last year’s brisk middleweight clash with young champ Jermain Taylor.
Of course, Hopkins, who lost two controversial decisions to Taylor in ’05, points out that the aggressive version of Wright was tagged and tagged often during his disputed draw with the middleweight champ.
Hopkins, who is undefeated vs. lefties (a solid list that includes Jackson, Antonio Tarver, Keith Holmes, Carl Daniels, Syd Vanderpool and Joe Lipsey), believes that he will be able to solve the puzzle of Wright’s high-guard defense and piston-like jab.
As good as Wright is (and I think he’s one of the top five boxers in the world, pound for pound), it’s hard not to favor Hopkins in Saturday’s fight after watching him exhibit “the basics” at the Wild Card.
“I don’t learn anything watching Bernard Hopkins,” Familton said as we left the gym with Schwartz and Husky to grab some lunch. “He just affirms what I’ve learned from the greats 50 and 60 years ago.”
I definitely learned something watching Hopkins and listening to Familton this past Monday.
Who knows? Maybe 30 or 40 years from now (if I’m lucky enough to still be around and clear headed enough to talk about the past) I might tell some young whippersnapper that watching Hopkins was about as it gets.
Four days have passed since Bernard Hopkins put on a masterful boxing clinic in all but shutting out Kelly Pavlik over 12 rounds and I’m still trying to put the wily old veteran’s victory into some kind of perspective.
My friend Don Familton, who celebrated his 79th birthday earlier this month, can. He’s observed the best of the best for more than 60 years and he’s taught the Sweet Science for longer than I’ve been alive.
When I asked his opinion about what Hopkins was able to do against Pavlik, Familton told me “If there was a college course on the science of boxing and I was the professor, this fight would be at the top of my list of films that I’d show my students at the start of the semester.”
I was glad Familton made a teaching analogy to describe the near perfection of Hopkins’ “schooling” of Pavlik.
“Just about every fighter of note had someone who really knew the fundamentals of boxing standing behind him,” Familton told me as I looked at pictures of him with Pernell Whitaker and James Toney when I dropped by his house in Culver City before we found a spot to have lunch and talk about the fight. “Whitaker had George Benton. Toney had Bill Miller. Joe Louis had Jack Blackburn. These are not accidents. Not to take anything away from the fighters’ individual talents and accomplishments but who they are or were in the ring had a lot to do with who taught them.
“I’ve met Benton. I know Miller. I don’t know Bouie Fisher, but he must be in their league because when you train a fighter from the beginning as he did with Hopkins and that fighter turns out to be as special as Bernard you have to know what you’re doing.”
In Hopkins, Fisher had a most dutiful student. A hard-nosed hard-working ex-con who was willing to do things the old man’s way, which meant they would take their time. After losing his pro debut (at light heavyweight) in 1988, Hopkins found Fisher and the old trainer kept him in the gym and out of the ring the entire year of ’89, teaching his raw but willing student the fundamentals of boxing.
It took the entire decade for Fisher to forge the versatile fighter we know today.
From 1990, when he re-entered the sport as a middleweight, to ’93, when he challenged ’88 Olympic silver medalist Roy Jones Jr. for the vacant IBF title, Hopkins was a tough-as-nails fighter known more for his hard right hand and his pro-wrestling inspired Executioner ring walk-in (complete with muscle-bound fake axe-wielding henchmen at his side) than he was for any level of skill or technique. However, from ’94 to ’99, ‘the Executioner’ evolved from a fighter into a compete boxer.
“Fisher must have built a solid foundation and went from there,” Familton said. “Year one in the gym should just be learning; balance, timing and delivery (or ‘marksmanship’ as Ray Robinson used to say).
“Learning how to step with every punch, learning how to pivot, learning how to go in and out; it sounds simple but it’s not easy, which is why it was such a pleasure to watch Hopkins train last year at the Wild Card gym. “Hopkins is closer to being flawless, technically, than any fighter I’ve seen in the post-World War II era.”
“Along with his conditioning, his mental attitude, approach and confidence,” Familton continued about Hopkins. “It all combines to make him one of the most unique fighters to come along in a long time. People just don’t go out and do what he did last Saturday.”
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Originally Posted by dee_z_r
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