Bernard Hopkins recently fought a non-title fight against World Middleweight Champion Kelly Pavlik. It was such a master class of boxing that it should only be sold exclusively as an instructional video to all the young men out there who wish to pursue a career in the pugilistic arts.
Bernard Hopkins can be compared to a great 43-year-old architect who is about to build a temple with a specific set of blue prints. B-Hop is given the assignment, and then he begins to build his game plan and future performance from the ground skywards.
He knows that the basic tools for building any beautiful structure are a square and a level; in fighting it's the jab and footwork. With those simplistic tools, and the right material, it's possible to build yourself an architectural boxing monolith.
The jab is one of the most basic weapons in combat sports, but it's very much underrepresented and often ignored. Bernard Hopkins' brilliant left jab is one of the main reasons the 43-year-old fighter is ranked fourth on boxing's top 10 pound for pound list.
In his most recent fight, Bernard was able to measure and control the much younger—but slower—Pavlik with constant pressure from his head snapping left jab.
Also, by circling to his right—away from his opponent's power hand—B-Hop was able to nullify and rob Kelly Pavlik of his greatest weapon, the big right hand bomb.
Kelly "The Ghost" Pavlik is the middleweight champion of the world. He is undoubtedly a championship level fighter with tremendous knockout power; however, I feel he also takes far too many punches, and Kelly has had moments where he has barely survived.
He hit the canvas in the second round of his title fight against Jermaine Taylor, and it looked for all intents and purposes that the six feet two inch Ohioan was about to fall apart; but later in the seventh round, two uppercuts and a solid left hook from Pavlik floored Jermaine Taylor.
Getting up off the canvas and coming back to win the middleweight championship of the world shows tremendous heart, and it's the stuff that our Champions are supposed to be made of, but in this writer's opinion Kelly Pavlik is now nothing more than a "paper champion."
This recent humiliating loss to Bernard Hopkins showed us boxing fans that the young champion has some huge fundamental flaws.
Pavlik's punches are prodding and slow, and in some cases he seems to be fighting to keep his balance.
How long will it be before some new contender follows the same blueprints that Bernard Hopkins used?
Kelly Pavlik has an upcoming mandatory middleweight title defense against Marco Antonio Rubio on Feb. 21.
Rubio isn't supposed to give him any trouble, and it is said to be an easy win for Pavlik, but nowadays in the boxing world Murphy's law applies, which means anything can and will happen at the worst possible time.
I'm not Mother Teresa, but I'm not Charles Manson, either.
29 Comments
Loading more comments...
This comment and all replies have been deleted This comment has been deleted Undo delete