Amid the discussion, which also involved a ritual picking apart of the 17-year-old Paras once expounding the virtues of Antonio Tarver (continued from the Paul Malignaggi-Juan Diaz rematch in December), the inevitable debate emerged on who would be victorious in this Saturday night’s Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones Jr. rematch.
Sigh…Back to that shortly.
I remember Thomas Hauser of SecondsOut.com, not too long ago, writing a piece regarding this fight. He didn’t really want to but recognized the need to as a duty to the sport, the fighters, and the fans. I can relate. I wrote about it a month ago and I got an itchy feeling about it, while tongue-in-cheekily calling the fight recompense for the lost Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr. fight. Trading in Wagyu beef for ground chuck. It wasn’t meant with disrespect. The fight now has simply lost its relevance, especially with the terrible loss Jones sustained in his last fight, a 122-second loss to Australian light heavyweight Danny Green.
Later, on the same day Jones lost to Green, Hopkins shook off his own ring rust in a unanimous decision win over Enrique Ornelas. By then, the former Undisputed Middleweight Champion and former THE RING magazine World Light Heavyweight Champion knew the result of the Green-Jones fight, resorting to making excuses for the one-time pound-for-pound boss’ loss, ranging from Jones actually not getting pancaked and knocked unconscious to getting an unfair shake in Europe (Yeah, I was scratching my head too). The fact of the matter was Hopkins wanted to salvage the rematch and he was saying whatever he could in order to make it a reality. It really seemed kind of pathetic, but there was no one else Hopkins wanted to fight. Hopkins knows Jones is a pigeon and needs any excuse possible to validate his pursuit.
A couple of weeks ago, former DoghouseBoxing.com writer and host of the daily KLFD (Minnesota) radio show “Aaron in the Afternoon,” Aaron Imholte asked me to participate on the show and asked me if I thought it was a show of disrespect to decry the rematch, due to Jones’ participation. I thought it was a very valid question and he certainly wasn’t saying that I, specifically, was dumping on the rematch. I have to admit, it made me think (although I had to think in a quickness. It was a live show) about whether or not I had a right to poop all over the fight. Basically, fighters fight. It’s what they do best. With many, it’s all they know and that’s why so many retirements are short-lived. We know a great many fighters who are past their primes have no business being in the ring but free will trumps common sense. It’s what keeps Evander Holyfield in a ring and brought back Erik Morales last weekend. We may not want ‘em to come back but they do. Who are we, really, to tell them that they can’t? My answer? Yeah, it is kind of disrespectful but only to the extent that we really can’t tell fighters what to do. They can’t tell writers how to write. We can’t tell them how or when to fight.
Back to the Boys’ Club…
The conversation at the UIC really took off after the card concluded. Most of us were buttoning up our post-fight reports or gathering our notes before the crew starting disassembling the ring. Of course, our needling of Paras’ admiration of Tarver naturally led to discussing his common opponents, Hopkins and Jones, thus leading to talk of the rematch. Not surprisingly, the lines were drawn. Guzman, who’s also an extremely talented painter and partner of mine in the League of Visual Excellence, was picking Hopkins (In fact, his text message to me today was, “It’ll be a sad, drawn-out affair, with Roy not winning a single round…or a quick, painless ‘B-Hop’ KO…either way, I’m watchin’!”) and Dockery, “P-Dock” to friends, was staunchly defending a Jones win (Dockery: “You mean to tell me you don’t think Jones is gonna show up?” Me: “The only way Jones is showing up is if Hopkins doesn’t and that’ll take a flat tire on the way to the arena.” We all laughed. We’re good sports.). I was asked where I stood and it took me back to the exact thing I told Aaron Imholte when I guested on his show. It made sense then and it makes sense now…at least, to me, it does.
It was then that I realized that Hopkins isn’t just “The Executioner;” he’s a considerate softie.
Dig, Howlers: Remember Hopkins’ defense of the middleweight championship in December of 2003? If you don’t, it was a mandatory (by the WBA’s standards) defense against William Joppy, who held the “regular” WBA middleweight belt he won in a vacancy filler against Howard Eastman in 2001. As what the WBA refers to as a “super champion,” Hopkins was obligated to defend his championship against Joppy. At the time, Joppy was having money problems and Hopkins was “dead set” on knocking out his challenger. In fact, Hopkins sweetened the deal by offering Joppy $50,000 if Joppy could make the full 12-round distance. Of course, Joppy did survive the fight, losing egregiously on all the cards, his head resembling a bulb of elephant garlic, from the constant strafing attack from Hopkins. But it was what it was; Joppy got the moral victory and a cool 50 large and Hopkins kept his championship intact. What’s real is that, if he truly wanted, Hopkins could’ve stopped Joppy. He didn’t. I’ve seen that fight five or six times (I admit it. I’m a Hopkins fan and I called it payback for Joppy reveling in stopping Roberto Duran. Sue me.) and from the first time I saw it, I swore Hopkins carried Joppy. Hopkins did it. Marco Antonio Barrera did it when he successfully defended THE RING magazine World Featherweight Championship against Johnny Tapia in November of 2002.
And Hopkins will do it again on Saturday.
Look, Hopkins is not only a practitioner of Our Sport and a first-ballot Hall-of-Famer; he’s one of the smartest men that ever stepped foot into a ring. Hopkins possesses smarts no book could ever teach. Everything he’s learned about life has aided in his evolution and his evolution has molded him into a fighter who knows how to save face, whether it’s via a well-veiled foul or lunging headbutt or making himself look good…by making his opponent look good.
It might come off as conspiracy theory-ish, but I can’t see Hopkins doing anything else but carrying Jones to the end of the 12th round and you know what? It’s not just to make himself look like he faced a live dog and that he met his objective of gaining revenge for a loss that burned inside his gut for damn near close to 17 years. Remember what I said about Hopkins being a considerate softie?
He’s giving Jones the gift of walking away from the sport with a distance loss, a greater dignity than expected. It’s an Old Boxing Boys’ Club move that a Boxing Media Boys’ Club could appreciate.
With that, the Boys’ Club packed up their gear and went their separate ways, at least until the next fight in Chicago, on April 30th. And, hopefully, it gave us all something to think about.
And, hopefully, it’ll give Bernard Hopkins the freedom in getting this ugly obsession with Roy Jones Jr. out of his head so he can finally focus on spending the remainder of his “golden years” on plotting his own dignified exit.
Questions? Comments? Complaints? Contact Coyote at artofthepaw@yahoo.com or visit him at www.facebook.com/CoyoteDuran or www.myspace.com/coyote_duran. Please visit www.coyoteduran.com or www.facebook.com/CDCreationNation to check out Coyote’s original art.
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