This is a portion of an article done on Bernard Hopkins’ last five fights by Scott Christ. To read the complete article and fully understand where Hopkins is in his career, check out Bad Left Hook. This portion focuses on Bernard’s first fight with Jean Pascal. Pascal and Hopkins rematch Saturday night at 10:00 p.m. ET on HBO.
Bernard Hopkins Vs. Jean Pascal II: A Look Back At The First Battle
Trying to describe Bernard Hopkins performances isn't easy. When you've seen them, you know what they are. Not pretty. Not exciting. Not fun. Not even overly dominant, usually. But they're awe-inspiring in the way he controls every square inch of the canvas like a master. In the second half of the fight against Pascal, he delivered one of those performances.
From our recap:
It was a classic Bernard Hopkins performance. In the third round, when Hopkins was legitimately knocked down on a good left hook, I thought Bernard’s face was saying, “Well, I think I’m finally too old.”
But it wasn’t. Bernard came out in the fourth and took full control of the fight. In a few rounds, Pascal looked clearly defeated mentally, laying off the gas pedal entirely and just fighting so tentatively that it made you wonder if he was even trying to win anymore. Hopkins ate some leather along the way, and maybe a couple of those last nine rounds that I gave to Hopkins could have gone Pascal’s way. I didn’t see it that way, but I’m sure a couple of them could have gone Jean’s way. But it was Bernard Hopkins’ fight from the start of round four on through the end, including a 12th round mini-war where both guys threw, though nobody was landing a ton.
The lingering doubt about his age will never go away, though, and it shouldn’t be counted out on Saturday. A smart Jean Pascal has the tools in his arsenal to beat Hopkins and put him out to pasture, if Bernard were to choose retirement. But is Pascal really smart? There have been few fights where the man in the ring was on Bernard’s level mentally -- Calzaghe, Winky Wright, a few others from “back in the day,” but when he’s able to out-think a fighter, he usually outclasses them. The lone exception to that might be Jermain Taylor, who was experiencing his short supernova peak of ability, and even those fights were tightly-contested and the decisions controversial.
Still, I also said in the Pascal recap that every time Bernard does what he did that night, it’s one less time he is going to be able to do it. He’s not younger. He’s not better. It’s all on Jean Pascal. Hopkins has shown vulnerabilities for a few years now. The question is whether Pascal can exploit those enough to convince the judges and the public that he really beat Hopkins -- and really beating Hopkins is something that only the 1993 version of Roy Jones Jr has ever done.
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