Hopkins Revenges Jones Defeat

Las Vegas, Nevada - Bernard Hopkins (51-5-1, 32 KO) won a unanimous decision over long time rival Roy Jones Jr. (54-7, 40 KO) in a dull contest that lived up to it's farcical hype that the public and media had labelled on it.

The fight was fought at a snail's pace, with CompuBox considering counting the feints instead of the punches. The only time of real excitement was when Hopkins made the most of the recovery time given for Jones' rabbit punch, where referee Tony Weeks rightly took a point away from Roy. Hopkins took four out of the five allowed minutes before coming back throwing wild punches at a retreating Jones, who then traded back for five seconds after the bell, nearly getting a double disqualification.

Hopkins constantly used his head to come inside, landing below the belt and rabbit punched. But Hopkins showed his street-wise mentality as it only occurred on the blind-side of Weeks. Every time Jones landed a foul, Hopkins would roll around on the floor demanding a point deduction. Hopkins was down three times, once in the sixth, eighth and tenth, all from Jones fouls. Jones also had recovery time for an accidental headbutt in the tenth.

Instead of landing any good punches, the legends put on an embarrassing show. I'm a fan of both, but this was horrible. Both are past their primes and can't deal with any high tempo. Both need to hang 'em up, they've had spectacular careers, both hall-of-famers and all-time greats. There's no point tarnishing their legacies with another pointless fight for a couple of pound coins.

The scores came in at 118-109, 117-110, 117-110, all for Hopkins. The BTBC scored the fight 118-110.

After the fight, Hopkins called out David Haye, and the least said about that the better.

On the undercard, light heavyweight Ismayl Sillakh (12-0, 11 KO) scored a second-round knockout of Daniel Judah (23-5-3, 10 KO).

Jason Litzau (27-2, 21 KO) got the nod over Rocky Juarez (28-6-1, 20 KO) as the fight went to the scorecards after Litzau's left eye was nearly shut as a result of an accidental headbutt in the seventh. It was a unanimous technical decision with cards of 68-65, 67-66 and 67-66. The BTBC scored the fight 67-66.

You know you have problems when Sergio Mora (22-1-1, 6 KO) was involved in the most exciting fight of the night, disposing overmatched Calvin Green (21-5-1, 13 KO) in seven rounds.

18 year-old Frankie Gomez (1-0, 1 KO) made a successful start to his promising professional career with a third-round stoppage win over Clayvonne Howard (2-4, 1 KO)

Your Ad Here

Madcow's Standing 8 Count (5/17/09)

by Madcow

Hello Everyone! It’s another edition of Madcow’s Standing 8 Count featuring James Kirkland’s least favorite shooting buddy, Me! I wonder way Kirkland hasn't been on the range lately?

To say that this week has been a slow news week is like saying that your beloved Madcow likes his Jack and Water cold and strong…Duh! Other than Andre Ward finally acting like a real prospect and Edison Miranda quickly working his way back to eating roadkill, almost nothing of note has been happening.

So, rather than fill the rest of this column with filler about Mayweather-Marquez-Pacquiao and played-out debates on who’s better, I thought I’d take this opportunity to let everyone know what I absolutely hate about the sport of Boxing.

Here’s my list (in no particular order):

* Manny Pacquiao’s Fans (Especially the Filipino Fans)- I understand national pride- I felt the same way when the USA passed Mexico on the Swine Flu “Most Infected” list, but these Pac-fans are too much. In the past weeks I’ve read stories about Manny “easily” beating everyone from Cotto to Hopkins to Klitschko. Hell, at the Pac-land Forum, they aren’t debating about “whether” Manny can beat Mayweather, they’re debating about in which round he’ll knock Floyd out! Pacquiao is a great fighter, no doubt, but his fans need to bring things back to reality…Manny can’t beat the entire Indonesian Coast Guard and he probably would fare too well against the Nazi War Machine of World War II, either.

* Mayweather’s Mouth- If PBF could trash talk in an intelligent manner, I wouldn’t have a problem, but he sounds downright retarded sometimes and totally oblivious to the criticisms that come his way. So, Mayweather will go on and on about how a good little man will never beat a good big man despite the fact that critics are all over him for fighting Juan Manuel Marquez and, duh, Mayweather, himself, chose to fight the little man.

* Fighters from The Contender- Take a bunch of club fighters, slap them on TV and send them out into the real world with an inflated sense of self-importance and a mess of undeserved publicity. The result is crappy fighters in crappy fights wasting precious TV time that could be going to a legit class fighter.

* Catchweight fights- For crissake, fight in your own division and when you kill everyone around, then move up! If God had intended Juan Manuel Marquez to weigh 147 lbs., he would’ve given the guy a shoe size larger than single-digits.

* Strawweights- Any athlete weighing less than 105 lbs should be either on top of a horse or wearing a mask in Mexican Lucha Libre.

* Overweight Heavyweights- Any 200+ lb. athlete with rolls of fat around his belly should be wearing face paint or an Indian headdress and wrestling in the WWE.

* Interim titles, “Regular” Champs, “Super” Champs- Either you’re champ or you’re not, no in-betweens. That’s why I respect the BTBC World Rankings- They don ‘t recognize any of that BS. Being an Interim or Regular Champ is like saying that you’re just “a little” gay…No, it doesn’t work like that. You’re either a champ or a challenger…

* The Mora-Spinks Syndrome- Fighters, like Sergio Mora and Cory Spinks, who talk tough and walk to the ring with a swagger, but fight like little biaaatches.

* HBO’s Influence Over Boxing- I hate the way HBO has been allowed to dictate to fighters, promoters and sanctioing bodies. Imagine FOX telling the NFL that the Cardinals aren’t allowed to be in the Super Bowl! I just don’t trust HBO…After all, this is the network that built-up the best series ever, The Sopranos, and ended its run with the lamest ending ever!

* Every Boxing Forum, except The BTBC’s (http://www.btbc.proboards.com/) and every Boxing Blog except this one and The Blue Corner Blog (http://thebluecorner.wordpress.com/). Ok, will you get off my back now, Paul?

Well, my time is up here and I must be on my way. Cold drinks and warm ladies await.

Until next Sunday.

Your Ad Here

Madcow's Standing 8 Count (5/10/09)

by Madcow

Welcome to another week's worth of Boxing slaps and tickles with your favorite overweight booze hound-wh*re monger. In case you don't know who I am, my name is Madcow- I'm an independently wealthy Boxing expert and, quite often, the smartest guy in the room.

Chad Dawson beat Antonio Tarver, again, in an almost identical fight as their first one. Nothing was working last Saturday. The whole HBO telecast seemed off. Dawson looked flat, Tarver looked ancient and even the ring card girls looked skankier than usual. It was a bad night for all parties...especially us fans who had to sit through a snore-fest while thinking about just how many great fights we could've seen aired with the money they wasted on Dawson/Tarver 2.

The next step for Dawson is to find a decent fight among all the bums at 175. The only option for a money fight is to fly out to Wales, find out where Calzaghe's gone drinking, bring TV cameras and force Joe to fight him, ala Rocky V...Either that or invent a time machine so he can go back 8 years to fight a Roy Jones who could actually defend himself.

As for Antonio Tarver...Tarver goes back to doing what all marginally successful men with smoking hot wives do- Look over his shoulder and have a private detective follow Denise Tarver around all day.

Speaking of Denise Tarver...Denise, drop me a line, ok? You can send all e-mails to boxing_times@yahoo.com. Put "Madcow" in the title and it'll be forwarded to me...Later, pumpkin.

Hector Camacho and Yory Boy Campas went ahead with their ridiculous PPV on Saturday. Florida played host to these geezers since Jersey wouldn't license Camacho. I was pulling for the show to be named "When Swollen Prostates Collide," but they went with "Nations Collide" or something silly like that. There's no word on the buy rate yet, but it has to be at least "1" because of the guy who was airing the illegal stream that I watched on the internet.

As for the show itself, if you enjoy the feel and production value of Sunday morning UHF Pro-Wrestling shows, you would've loved this one. Dim lighting, grainy color, cheap effects...you had to know that any PPV featuring a 47-year old felon in the main event had to be all class.

By the way, the fight was declared a draw...and there's no truth to the rumor that the pre-fight physical used carbon dating technology.

Next week, Andre Ward and Edison Miranda mix it up. I have to admit that Miranda is the type of blow-hard bully that I hate with a passion. But, Ward is the type of good-looking arrogant jock I also hate with a passion. So, I'm torn. Maybe I'll root for a double knockout or a collapsing roof.

Roy Jones wanted to fight in the UFC Octagon against Anderson Silva and the fight would've been made if Dana White hadn't vetoed it. White says that a Jones fight is meaningless and that he doesn't want to be responsible for a legend like Roy Jones getting hurt. Yeah, right...and the only reason I'm not nailing Scarlett Johansson is because I don't like busty blondes.

The Kelly Pavlik-Sergio Mora fight, scheduled for June 27th, has been cancelled. On the surface this is good news, but all this means is that we're still going to have to co-exist in the same universe as Mora until Pavlik's staph infection of the hand is better.

Ok, I have to run, I gotta get a massage and if I show up late for my appointment, the "happy ending" becomes an "inconclusive session-ender."

If you're reading this at: http://thebluecorner.wordpress.com/ , be sure to check out the latest addition to the BTBC universe: The BTBC...Boxing With a Bite! http://www.btbc-boxing.blogspot.com/.

If you're already reading this at our boxing news blog, be sure to check out our original blog for longer feature stories and analysis: http://thebluecorner.wordpress.com/

And if I pissed you off and you want to tear me a new one, hop on our message board: http://www.btbc.proboards.com/.

I'll see ya next Sunday, ladies.

Your Ad Here