Following on from last week’s fight of the week we will again look at the master boxer Bernard Hopkins. This time we pick up his career a few years later, he is now 43 years old, has just lost his Light heavyweight title and is surely on the slide right?His opponent is the unbeaten, hard hitting, tall and rangy Middleweight champion of the world Kelly Pavlik.
Pavlik had beaten Jermaine Taylor twice, the man that had dethroned Hopkins after he had reigned for 10 years as world champion. For some reason Pavlik moved up to a catch weight of 170 pounds, 10 pounds above his division to face a 43 year old coming off a loss. Perhaps this was to take some of the shine off of Hopkin’s name but to me seemed a strange choice.As the two met in the centre of the ring both looked composed, Pavlik even though he was coming up in weight looked to have the height and reach advantage, would he be able to use them?
Round 1 began with Pavlik probing with his jab, Hopkins was happy to box on the outside against his younger opponent. Several times during the round Hopkins feinted a jab then dipped to his left and uncorked a left hook to the liver, once he had done this a couple of times he combined it with a short overhand right that snuck in a few times on Pavlik. Pavlik’s range and height seemed to be giving Hopkins a bit of concern as he looked a little bit uncomfortable at times. Pavlik wasn’t able to get too much going for me, he wasn’t consistent with his jab and was not active enough and as such lost this round, round 1 for Hopkins.
Round 2 built upon the previous round, Hopkins had started quickly and Pavlik was trying his best to catch up but was falling short. Hopkins was again having success feinting the jab and setting up offence after dipping to his left. On the occasion that Pavlik did get close, Hopkins nullified his work in the clinch and got back to safety. About midway through the round again Hopkins caught an outside angle off of a feint and this time landed a clean lead hand uppercut that stunned Pavlik. Pavlik was again not active enough with his long jab, he was also throwing too few feints and as such Hopkins was able to avoid any follow up right hands when he did throw them. Hopkins was also flurrying off the break showing crisp speed at 43 years old along with his customary crisp coordination. Hopkins round.
Round 3 saw Pavlik press forward with a little bit more urgency, he was spending a lot of time with his head in the centre at 12 o’clock looking to throw double jabs followed by a right hand. Hopkins by contrast was always off centre either with his head at 11 or 1 o’clock allowing him to avoid Pavlik’s straight hitting and answer with hooks and flurries. As with last week’s fight Hopkins efficiency and precision was noticeable against a less polished opponent. Pavlik was going to have to do something different as he was falling behind and looked uncoordinated next to the smooth Hopkins. Hopkins round.
Round 4 was a continuation of the previous rounds, Pavlik following Hopkins around without being able to get much going. Hopkins was doing a great job changing tempo, he would spend 30 odd seconds moving around working behind his jab before jumping into action and flurrying to the head and body. His body work seemed to get a bit more focused this round and he touched Pavlik up with 2’s and 3’s a few times over the course of the round. Pavlik’s lack of feints and command of the range with his jab left him exposed to counters. One such counter, a perfectly timed short overhand right caught him coming in looking to throw a lead hand uppercut, which he did well to take. Another round for Hopkins.
Round 5 was looking a fairly even round for the first two minutes, then Hopkins avoided a right hand to the body whilst on the ropes and literally strolled to the centre taking his eye off of Pavlik for a second, the mental warfare was stepping up. From there Hopkins initiated a quick clinch, outmaneuvered Pavlik pulling on his far hip before punishing him while he couldn’t defend himself momentarily. From there Hopkins bullied the bigger, younger man at close range working to head and body with exemplary defensive awareness for anything coming back at him. He was doing what he wanted in there and Pavlik was getting frustrated and perhaps a bit embarrassed. Hopkins round.
Round 6 saw Pavlik’s activity level go up quite a bit, he was still missing more than he was landing but this sort of tempo at least could swing things in his favour being the much younger fighter. For all of Pavlik’s activity however he was still getting caught, in this round Hopkins was finding success with cross counters over the jab which were landing with regularity. At close range Hopkins was being more cognizant of the body and landing cleaner. For me that was the closest round by far but I will still call it for Hopkins as the cleaner shots were landed by Hopkins never mind Pavlik’s activity level.
Round 7 begins and we are into the second half of the fight. Going in you would have thought the strategy for Pavlik would be to push the pace early to force the 43 year old Hopkins to fight at a high pace, this had not happened however. In this round Hopkins was back to commanding the tempo, Pavlik walked forward probing but wasn’t making adjustments and wasn’t tricking Hopkins. Hopkins was finding more space for his cross counters and was landing follow up left hooks before slipping away. Hopkins was also using great lateral movement and countering off the ropes when he needed to. As the round came to a close Hopkins was beginning to show boat a bit enjoying schooling this younger champion opponent. Round big for Hopkins.
Round 8 was the same story for the whole fight so far in microcosm. Where Hopkins was proactive, Pavlik was reactive. Where Hopkins was mixing up his attacks Pavlik was predictable. Where Pavlik was looking to land with every shot Hopkins was happy to land on the 2nd shot. The biggest thing that happened in this round was Pavlik got a point taken away for hitting the back of the head. He was way behind on the cards and had been unable to tire out the older man. Hopkins round by 2 points.
Round 9 and as we are drawing into the latter stages of the fight the stat that Pavlik has only 2 knockout wins past the 8th round becomes very prescient because he is way behind here. Pavlik started to target the body in this round sporadically, something he might have been well served to do from the opening bell. Each time he did hit the body Hopkins would flurry with his own body punches. A lot of this round was Hopkins leading Pavlik into shots, counter right hands were landing as were hooks when they got in close. At the end of the round the referee decided to take a point from Hopkins for holding which seemed a bizarre call as he had not been excessive. When they had clinched up the referee would jump in to break them before they had even attempted to work their way free as a lot of modern referees do which is a personal gripe of mine. That point deduction made it an even round 9-9 as Hopkins had clearly controlled the round with ease.
Round 10 was a scrappy round, Pavlik kept coming forward but wasn’t able to land much clean while Hopkins seemed content to pot shot and look to outbox his opponent. The finishing line was in sight now for Hopkins and he seemed in control of what was happening and was happy to not overextend himself now. As I say close, scrappy round, call it even.
Round 11 Hopkins came out jabbing with authority early which was a different look for quite a while for him. After a bit of that he went into close range and looked to work over pavlik with combinations of short hooks and right hands. The referee was getting increasingly animated on the amount of clinching but again he was breaking them so early they hadn’t started to work their way out yet. This round had the similar feel of the last round with Hopkins coasting his way to a famous victory doing enough to inch out these last few rounds. Hopkins round.
Round 12 was upon us, the fight stats showed that Hopkins at 43 years of age had thrown 35 more punches and landed 46 more so far. The pace suited Hopkins down to the ground, he was averaging just over 40 punches a round thrown which is a relaxed pace at best, Pavlik threw just below 40 a round which was not going to get it done against the master boxer Hopkins. The round began like the last few rounds, Pavlik gamely coming forward but not landing much while Hopkins was happy to flurry a bit and clinch up when Pavlik got close. Then 40 seconds into the round Hopkins decided to let it go and began to wail on Pavlik with vicious shots to both head and body bringing the crowd to their feet. After that onslaught Hopkins went back to what was working from earlier in the fight, potshotting, clinching and being elusive. He would sporadically open up again as the fight drew to a close including fighting after the bell with an exhausted and disheartened Pavlik trying to answer. Once they had been separated Hopkins walked to the corner of the ring and calmly stared down the press row one by one with his heart rate seemingly unaffected by the exertion from the last 12 rounds. Hopkins round.
In consecutive weeks we had seen Hopkins give much younger and undefeated fighters a boxing lesson. His professionalism and fundamentals were what set him apart, he made these very talented fighters look one note and out of ideas. He amazingly went on to fight 11 more times winning two versions of the light heavyweight title before retiring at 51.
Pavlik had lost his undefeated record but was still middleweight champion of the world. He went back to his preferred weight and defended his belts twice before losing again 18 months after his defeat to Hopkins. He finished his career with four more victories before retiring at 30 years of age with a record of 40 wins and 2 losses.
What did you think?
Come back next week for another fight of the week retrospective.