Hopkins-Pavlik

By BJ

I just finished watching the broadcast of the boxing match between Bernard Hopkins and Kelly Pavlik.  I have a long history with the sport of boxing, and I have to say that it was wonderful to watch a master at the game perform his craft.  Hopkins was the master strategist, and Pavlik was simply out of his league.  Of course, Pavlik did have a few moments during the bout, and did manage to close the gap between the two towards the end, but Hopkins was simply too far ahead and capped his performance with some brilliant flurries during the last round.

A couple of quotes from the broadcast that made me perk up were from quotes that Bernard Hopkins made to the reporters prior to the fight.

“When it comes to ring generalship, I’m the Harvard grad and Pavlik is the guy from the community college.”

“When I beat Kelly Pavlik, I will bring hope to the hopeless.”

"Hopkins says that in the corner, he's the President and the other guys are his cabinet."

And regarding the fight itself:

Pavlik seems to be taking more risks.  He has to if he is to have any chance.”

“Pavlik just ran into something they never anticipated they would and they haven’t been able to adapt.”

In the eighth round, one of the commentators said that it looked like Pavlik would need some kind of bailout if he were to have any hope of winning, to which another quipped, “Well, at least it shouldn’t cost $700 billion”.

Perhaps not too surprisingly, Hopkins corner men were wearing Obama/Biden T-shirts, and Hopkins gave a shout out to Obama and Michelle after the fight.  And much like Obama, Hopkins is known for being very conservative with his finances, and just bought a rather nice house out of foreclosure that just happens to make him a next-door neighbour to Joe Biden.  The analogy seems just too easy, though in this case, Hopkins was actually the old guy, even if he didn't look it tonight.

In the end, the scoring was a landslide for Hopkins.