Was Hopkins a “winner” by Seemingly Being Humbled?”
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Was Hopkins a “winner” by Seemingly Being Humbled?” By Ken Hissner at ringside reporting for Dog House Boxing (Nov 10, 2014) TweetFollow @DoghouseBoxing
The post press conference from Saturday nights Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev’s victory over Bernard “the Alien” Hopkins winning every round and taking Hopkins’ WBA Super World and IBF light heavyweight titles while keeping his WBO title may have produced an “Alien” afterwards!
Though admitting he is not a “good loser” Hopkins seemed to give the victor, Kovalev, all the credit one could ever expect! Even Kovalev’s trainer the former world champion John David Jackson who not only fought Hopkins but sparred with him and helped train him if I am not mistaken at one time received credit from Hopkins.
When Hopkins was asked “would you like a rematch” he responded quickly with “that is like asking a woman just after giving birth if she wants another baby?” Like other post conferences of Hopkins I was never called upon by the same person who works for Golden Boy since a remark I responded to by Hopkins in 2008 when Hopkins had defeated Kelly Pavlik saying “tonight I am the winner and the next winner will be Obama”.
I wanted to ask Hopkins “since you got such an ovation entering the ring do you still feel you don’t get enough respect?” But, the chance never came. His pre-fight comments of not getting respect due to being “black” brought this on. My rebuttal to that was entitled Hopkins, Holmes and Dangerfield say “we get no respect!”
The fight itself though Kovalev won every round 120-107 on two scorecards and 120-106 on the other one still never doubted that Hopkins had a chance to “pull out the victory” until the final bell. His promotional team member Oscar deLaHoya said the same.
When Gennady “GGG” Golovkin’s name came up as a future opponent for certain fighters I laughed out loud. Who in their right mind is going to fight whom I call the “best P4P fighter” in the world and possibly the most feared? The other champions from 154-168 say they will fight him but never put their signature on a contract to fight him.
I asked Main Events CEO Kathy Duva after the post press conference if after (Adonis) Stevenson the WBC light heavyweight champion “would super middleweight champion Andre Ward be considered?” She said “we have already offered that fight to him and we were turned down”. Ward has been tied up in the courts with his promoter for some time and has fought very little though he spent most of his amateur career at 178. Ward and Kovalev would be interesting.
Hopkins upon leaving the podium talked to John David Jackson for a moment. I wonder if he will be asked to be part of “team Hopkins?” He certainly had a lot to do with Kovalev’s preparation for Hopkins. The usual entourage for Hopkins wasn’t noticed. Not that he like too many boxers has any flunkies on the payroll that I have ever noticed.
The feeling is that upon approaching his 50th birthday on January 15th Hopkins will fight again. Maybe he should consult Muhammad Ali who will celebrate his birthday 2 days later when it’s time to call it quits. I could see Hopkins beating Stevenson let alone Kovalev doing the same but a re-match with Kovalev I can’t see ever happening though with Hopkins “money talks!” Rumors of him coming down to 168 were mentioned not only to him but Kovalev. Duva quickly said “he (Kovalev) won’t be going down (to 168) for anyone”. Adding, “they would have to come up to him.” That makes sense to me. If anything Kovalev may end up a cruiserweight down the line.
After seeing shop worn new IBF middleweight champion Jermain Taylor re-win a world title (Sam Solomon’s injury had a lot to do with it during the fight) you never quite know what a former champion might do to re-gain the spotlight and for money! The undercard with hardly a competitive fight and spreading out 9 fights for HBO over what seemed like an eternity made it a long night for all. The wait for Hopkins and Kovalev made it all worthwhile especially for Kovalev fans!
An additional note was up until recently Main Events top fighter and former world champion Tomasz Adamek was defeated in Poland Saturday night. Don’t look for a third Adamek – Steve “USS” Cunningham fight but maybe a Cunningham – Amir Mansour re-match since Cunningham was at the Sands Casino in Bethlehem, PA, Saturday night watching Mansour get back on the winning track posting a 7th round knockout!
