Middleweight champ Bernard Hopkins hasn’t lost in over 12 years.
Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins made his historic 20th title defense tonight in Los Angeles against tough fighter Howard Eastman. The fight was delayed about 40 minutes because Hopkins hadn’t taped his hands yet. When the fight did start there were 6 punches total landed in the first round, 3 by each fighter. The next 3 rounds were also slow and led to a lot of booing from the crowd.
HBO commentator Larry Merchant started to question why the champion was running.
Things started to change in the fifth. Eastman made a slight move early in the round getting Hopkins caught in the corner. By the end of the round, the fighters were talking trash as Hopkins landed two left hooks before the bell. The eager for action crowd then gave the fighters a standing ovation.
The sixth was all Hopkins, landing some big head shots as he dominated the round. Hopkins slightly eked out the seventh. Eastman made his move again in the eighth, landing some big right hands. The round ended with both fighters throwing shots after the bell and the crowd again on their feet.
The rest of the fight was highlighted by Eastman’s ability to take a really hard punch without getting knocked out. The champion dominated the final rounds and simply out-classed the challenger and went on to score a unanimous decision win. He gave Eastman a “B+” on effort.
Slowplay.com’s favorite fighter, Hopkins is well recognized as the pound-for-pound best fighter in the world. Still known as “The Executioner” (though he had “B-Hop” on his trunks tonight), he has stopped wearing his executioner’s mask to the ring at the start of the U.S. war on terror out of respect to the soldiers.
Rising Middleweight star Jermain Taylor won by third round KO on the undercard. Roy Jones Jr. called the fight an audition for a possible future match up between Taylor and Hopkins. Hopkins said in a pre-fight interview that he was impressed and would be interested in a fight with Taylor. At age forty, Hopkins has said he only wants to fight 2-3 more fights, he already has Felix “Tito” Trinidad in his sights and with Taylor in need of a few more fights before stepping up, it’s not known if this fight will ever take place.
Boxing Insiders has a great article on what other fighters have to say to about Bernard Hopkins.
Eric Anderson at 10:47 pm
