Hopkins Vs. Taylor
B-Hop.
On Saturday in Las Vegas, Berna
rd "The Executioner" Hopkins lost his undisputed middle-weight title to Jermain "I’m an assclown" Taylor. Hopkins had held this belt 12 years. That’s a long fucking time. I can hardly go 12 minutes without losing something.
Jermain "Jackson" Taylor didn’t impress me at all during the fight, other than initially showing good speed and early combos that seemed to have Hopkins off balance and dodging wildly. I would describe his fighting style against Hopkins as that of a "shook young bitch" who had "bitten off far more than he could chew."
But, after awarding the first two rounds to Taylor, I only had him winning one more round the entire fight. As Max "HCHS Alum" Kellerman said, 3 of the rounds were difficult to call, but I gave all 3 of those to Hopkins on the strength that he was the champ and Taylor wasn’t even going hard at him. You have to put the champ on his back at least once, or barring that, you have to be the aggressor for the entire fight. Not just the first 7 rounds.
It did take Hopkins a while to get started, but Taylor wasn’t landing any punches at all, and I felt as though his wild style was detracting from his scorecard as opposed to strengthening it. Perhaps Hopkins could have posed less and punched more in rounds 6-9, but I felt as though his taunts increasing frustrated Taylor, who never hurt him during the fight.
Now Taylor, as someone pointed out, "looks mean."
Hopkins, former jailbird and man-on-man-rapist, IS mean. He will eat your food if you aren’t eating it right.
When he started landing right hands, it was obvious that he was setting Taylor up. Unfortunately whenever Hopkins started eating Taylor’s food, Jermain turned his back as though he was trying to get his shit pushed in. At some point the ref actually stopped a punch that would have caught a defenseless Taylor (whose back was turned) in the temple. At no point were any points deducted from Taylor for his refusal to fight or defend himself. I was so enraged that I scored one of the rounds 10-8 Hopkins, because Taylor was being such a fucking pussy.
Anyway, one of the judges had the audacity to give the last round to Taylor, even though at two separate times during the round Taylor put his arms down and turned his back on the fight.
Hopkins (who once grabbed a Puerto Rican flag out of Don Kings hand before the Trinidad fight and stomped on it. In Puerto Rico.) was very composed in the post-fight interview, and pointed out that he didn’t even look like he had been in a fight, and that he knew he had won. I agree with him.
Fuck Lou DiBella.
