The Old Man and the White Boy

It happened Saturday night in Vegas, folks.

What stood to be a rather intriguing match-up between Joe Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins for the Ring Magazine light heavyweight championship was a bore and tarnished the luster on both future Hall of Fame careers.

As it regards B-Hop, well, you DID lose to a white boy, Mr. Executioner. You’ve got to be embarrassed about that, don’t you? Not really, you should be more ashamed about uttering those words a couple of weeks back. You claim you’re a role model for boxers entering the game yet you promote continuing racism with ethnic slurs. You claim to be an accomplished businessman yet you’re not savvy enough to realize that your opponent, although a Caucasian, came from a socio-economic background very similar to yours. Wales ain’t fully of Bentleys and drop-top Mercedes last time I looked and certainly Super Joe (later on that) didn’t eat from a silver spoon as a child.

And then there’s the in ring performance and post fights comments by the former undisputed middleweight champion. Even the most casual of boxing fans knows that Hopkins is a counter puncher, a defensive fighter and certainly this fight did nothing to dispel that notion. Hopkins was never in trouble and frankly was never shook by the undefeated super middleweight champion, unless you consider the “alleged” low blows landed.

You saw those blows if you watched it live, or maybe just the replays; a shameful exhibition by a fighter who claims to be so prideful. The real hero in that episode was Joe “Firm but Fair” Cortez, the match’s referee. He wasn’t fooled for a second by the effects of the shots (but then NONE of Calzaghe’s shots hurt) and refused to take a point away from Joe; a deduction that could have swung the fight to Hopkins.  But even with all the faking, Hopkins had the fight in the palm of his hands by virtue of a knockdown inside the first two minutes of the match. Hopkins had the same problem this night as he did in his other two recent losses against dethroned middleweight champion Jermain Taylor. Bernard just forgot rule one of the sport.

You gotta throw punches to win.

So for all his yapping about what great shape Hopkins is in (and he is, for a normal 43 year old), he was tired and couldn’t get off enough effective punches against a guy who couldn’t hurt him. He was up 2 points with 11 rounds to go and couldn’t seal the deal. At the end of the night, we heard the same old tired rant about how, “the fans knew who won this fight.” I heard it after the Taylor losses and truth be told, they’re excuses and nothing more. So it’s time for Hopkins to pack up his Hall of Fame credentials and counter punch himself into retirement. He’s made a boat load of green since going partners with Oscar de la Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions. His life style is the polar opposite of Floyd Mayweather, so he’ll never spend the money he’s made over the last five years and rightfully should step in to history alongside the other great middleweight champs. I was a Hopkins fan for a long time; his story is one of redemption and is a great example of what one can do in America if they put their mind to it. But even his most staunch supporters can’t really defend his actions outside the ring or the effort inside it.

So please, no more fights, B-Hop.

Now as for the white boy, the still undefeated Calzaghe…. I’m not really sure what to say. First suggestion, drop the Super Joe moniker, at least in the US because no one is buying it with that effort. Suffice to say that this fight did nothing to tear down the perception that the Welshman is a figment of the British boxing public’s imagination. The slapping punches, the silly dancing in the ring and his inability to make a dent in Hopkins impressed no American fans on Saturday night. Assured anyone stateside won’t cry if Joe fights another 38 fights overseas before coming back.

Give Calzaghe credit for being a smart strategic fighter; although his style wins fights don’t give him credit for being exciting. His signature win is still the 12 round lopsided unanimous decision over Jeff Lacy we witnessed back in 2005 in Manchester, UK. That night, he hand speed was spectacular and he evened floored an exhausted Lacy in the last round, an incredible feat if you saw the lack of punching power he demonstrated in the Hopkins match. Though his record remains unblemished and that’s hard to argue with, look at the record since the Lacy victory.

Sakio Bakia. Peter Manfredo, Jr. An injured Mikkel Kessler and a 43 year old “white boy” declarer.  Calzaghe backers say you can only fight the people you put in front of him but certainly based on his Las Vegas performance, any light heavy in the top 10 (Dawson, Tarver, Johnson, but PLEASE not Clinton Woods) would certainly take a shot at him, heck they’d probably run in the ring right about now. I’d like to see him take a shot at a top 5 fighter who’s healthy and UNDER the age of 40 but as smart as he and his dad Enzo are, you probably won’t see it. I’d like to see Glen Johnson take a shot at him because Johnson would come straight at him and certainly wouldn’t be concerned about getting hurt. But unless that match up was held in downtown Cardiff, Wales, they’d sell about 20 tickets.

The fight they should make and probably the one with the most marquee value (read: money making potential) would be a bout at either super middleweight, a catch weight at 170, or light heavy with Roy Jones, Jr. A match like that could be staged either in Wales or the UK, where Jones would help fill the seats or at Madison Square Garden, where the recent string of promotions have been highly successful.

And I doubt Roy would call Joe a “white boy.”

The more likely reality is that Joe and his promoter Frank Warren will do a few more fights back in the UK against lesser talent to enrich both their bank accounts, which they’ve earned the right to do. Calzaghe’s legacy is one that remain intact in the heart and minds of the British fans and the American public really doesn’t care about.