DE LA HOYA FOCUSED ON HOPKINS, STURM

June 4, 2004 - by Ron Borges

The one thing Oscar De La Hoya says he knows about Bernard Hopkins is that you never know.

You never know what he's thinking or what he's plotting or what is motivating his actions. You never know if he means what he says or if he's saying what he means. You never know much except that if you are scheduled to fight him it could be a long night.

The fact of the matter is though that De La Hoya believes he knows this much. He believes he knows he's ready for such a night, if it comes. Ready not only to square off with Hopkins on Sept. 18 as scheduled but to beat him, which is why boxing's Golden Boy found it so disconcerting when he learned Thursday afternoon that Hopkins was threatening to pull out of his preliminary fight with Robert Allen Saturday night if referee Joe Cortez wasn't re-assigned.

De La Hoya was bothered by this because that fight was to be both the preliminary to his own bout with WBO middleweight champion Felix Sturm on June 5 but also the preliminary to a unification showdown with Hopkins in September, a fight that was to guarantee the undisputed middleweight champion nearly $11 million and De La Hoya perhaps more than $20 million.

De La Hoya didn't really believe Hopkins would go through with his threat to fly back to Philadelphia if Cortez wasn't replaced as the referee in the Allen fight but what he did believe was that most anything is possible when the pressure is on and the man under pressure is Hopkins, who has made some strange business decisions in the past that have cost him at least $9 million in purses in blown fights that could have been agreed to with Roy Jones, Jr. and James Toney.

That being the case, might Hopkins also choose to blow the biggest payday of his career if he felt it served some higher purpose only he might fully grasp?

"That's Hopkins for you,'' De La Hoya said when he heard of the controversy. "For having that attitude he's missed out on a lot of great opportunities. He may have a point but he has to look at the big picture. I don't think a referee should come between us. Bernard is a smart guy. He sometimes has a vision way ahead and you don't even realize it.

"It could be Hopkins wants to make sure some referee is letting him fight his fight. He knows it will be a rough fight with Allen. Maybe he wants to make sure Cortez lets him fight. Maybe Cortez is not a good referee for his style. Maybe he feels Cortez will interfere with him and he won't be able to fight the dirty fight he wants to fight. Cortez is very good at keeping a fight clean. But come on (a problem) with Robert Allen?''

The problem was not really Allen, although more than a few people think Allen could give Hopkins a problem if he is on his game. He did just that the first time the two met in a fight eventually ruled a no contest after Hopkins was pushed out of the ring by referee Mills Lane and suffered a twisted ankle. In their rematch, Hopkins dominated, but Allen was fighting with a broken hand and believes their first meeting was more indicative of how a fight between them would go.

Hopkins didn't share Allen's point of view but something was bothering him when he packed his clothes and equipment and headed to the airport late Thursday afternoon when his objections to Cortez were not immediately responded to. As Hopkins later stewed in his room waiting to see if Cortez would step aside or the Nevada State Athletic Commission would find a way to push him aside, De La Hoya was wondering if perhaps Bernard Hopkins had figured out before it was too late something he thought only he was sure of.

"The question is yeah he's great on the inside but is he good on the outside,'' De La Hoya said of Hopkins, who has successfully defended the middleweight title 17 times. "Has anybody made him use his legs? Has anyone hit him to the body? I saw against Joppy I could take the guy or else I wouldn't have (agreed to have) taken on this beast. Styles make fights. I saw something (in Hopkins). I can do it.''

If Bernard Hopkins sees things as far down the road as De La Hoya claims did he perhaps see something in the final hours as the Allen fight approached? Did he see what De La Hoya saw? Did he see disaster waiting for him on Sept. 18 and only one way to avoid it or did he simply see that Cortez might make it difficult for him to damage Allen in the way he needed to to win?

As usual, when it comes to Bernard Hopkins, only he knows what was going through his mind in the final 48 hours before he was to face Allen on the undercard of De La Hoya's first fight as a middleweight. Not even De La Hoya claimed to know for sure if Hopkins really intended to turn his back on Allen and hence on his big fall fight as well or if there was something else going on. All he knew from his vantage point somewhere between being two steps ahead of Hopkins and three behind was one thing.

"Maybe he's a little jittery,'' De La Hoya said. "Hopkins has been in a lot of fights but when you're involved in an event of this magnitude it's a whole different story. You start feeling jumpy about a lot of things. Once the bell rings you're in your office doing your job but it's getting through the obstacles before the fight that's hard. You're thinking about so many things. This can go wrong, that can go wrong.

"You start thinking about the judges, the referee, your camp. Is the ring too big? Did you train enough? There's a fine line between being sharp and being paranoid. Obviously, when you start looking at those little things you've crossed that line.''

Did Bernard Hopkins cross that line between alertness and paranoia when he threatened to pull out of his fight with Robert Allen if referee Joe Cortez wasn't removed or was it all just brinksmanship on his part, a way to gain an edge?

Only he knows the answer to that question.

At least for now.