BERT SUGAR POST-FIGHT

October 20, 2008 - by Bert Sugar

Who'd have thunk it? Before their fight those with cauliflower tongues would have had you believe that Bernard Hopkins was too old, too this, too that to take on the young lion Kelly Pavlik who, with 30 knockouts in his 34 victories, was thought to be too much for the 43-year-old Hopkins. Even Hopkins' well-being was called into question, few giving him any chance of winning, let alone surviving Pavlik's vaunted power.

Never did apprehension have less basis, for Bernard Hopkins, in the Indian summer of his career, washed away the improbability of the calendar, turning in a time-bending performance as he recycled his numerous skills to dominate Pavlik and prove he was one for the ages.

From the moment he entered the ring wearing the "Executioner" mask he had worn many a fight ago--apparently the two beefy henchmen dressed like executioners and bearing battle axes who had always accompanied him into the ring had been lost at some Halloween costume party--with eyes peeking out that summoned up a warning and giving the 11,300 fans at Boardwalk Hall his stylized slash-across-the-throat gesture, you could tell that this fight stoked his competitive fires. Signals like that, like railroad crossings, are to be strictly observed.

Even before the echo from the opening bell had died down there was Hopkins, in the blood rush of a couple of steps, inside Pavlik's long arms, whipping over a lead right, followed by a couple of well-placed left hooks, then moving back out of range, away from Pavlik's dynamite-laden right, never letting Pavlik set his feet to deliver it. Again and again, he delivered combinations, leaving Pavlik caught in the switches as he hit him with everything, including that grappling hook known as fate. It was almost a throwback to his fight with Felix Trinidad seven years ago when he employed his entire arsenal of skills to befuddle the then-undefeated Trinidad.

In the second there was more of the same, almost like the watering of last year's crops, as he staggered Pavlik with a six-punch combination. A vague roar, almost subterranean in quality, began to make itself heard, then erupted into a full-throated roar for Hopkins as he continued his assault with a combination of finesse and power.

Pavlik, unable to execute Plan A, began to look for Plan B, C, D, or anything down to Z to turn the fight in his favor, but he was as bereft as Robinson Crusoe without a boat as Hopkins continued to dominate him. And even taunt him, doing a Sugar Ray Leonard number on him by winding up with his right hand before landing it.

Hopkins continued to rewrite his legacy as round-after-round, hardly partial to a single orthodoxy, he hit Pavlik everywhere but in the wallet while Pavlik was reduced to hitting his tormentor the only place he could, in the back of the head--forcing referee Benjy Esteves to deduct a point from Pavlik in the eighth for rabbit punching after Hopkins had theatrically helped him make his decision by holding the back of his head for ten seconds to show where he had been hit.

Hopkins returned the favor, and the point, by being penalized the next round by Esteves for holding. But that was to be the only point he was to lose on one judge's scorecard as he put on what Muhammad Ali would call "a one-sided ass-whuppin," even staggering Pavlik in the 12th.

The decision was as easy to see as the egg on the chin of a hungry Denny's Diner patron, a one-sided 119-106, 118-108, 117-109 decision, all for Hopkins.

After the decision, Hopkins stepped to the side of the ring facing the press, almost like Ali had after beating Liston for the title, and holding back tears, stared up at them as if to say, "You were wrong!" And they were, most of them not even giving Hopkins a chance. But the 43-year-old Hopkins, just three months shy of his 44th birthday, had given the greatest performance of his career. And quite possibly the greatest performance of any 40-plus boxer in history. Greater than George Foreman's winning the heavyweight crown at the age of 45; greater than Archie Moore's getting off the floor to KO Yvon Durelle in defense of his light heavyweight title at the age of 45; greater than Bob Fitzsimmons winning the light heavyweight title at the age of 40. In a field given to fashioning nimbuses, Hopkins now wears a new one, having added a new chapter to his already-glowing legacy.

A gracious Hopkins then walked over to the defeated Pavlik, who looked like a two-ton truck had run over him and a vagrant locomotive had rumbled over to his remains and told him, "You're a great middleweight champion. Keep you head up...If I have to come to Youngstown and go to your house and take you to the gym, I will." Why not? He had already taken him to school.

Bert Sugar is the co-author, with Angelo Dundee, of "My View from the Corner," now on sale at better bookstores everywhere.