Hopkins: Judging makes him 'people's champ'
By Michael J. Woods
MaxBoxing.com
You thought what?
That Bernard Hopkins would sit down Sunday afternoon, put in the tape of him fighting Jermain Taylor the night before and suddenly reverse course?
You thought he'd concede that he gave away too many early rounds, admit that he shouldn't have been so economical with his punch output and announce that he was heading over to judge Duane Ford's crib for cocktails and happy patter?
C'mon.
This is the dude who risked the wrath of an entire island when he grabbed a Puerto Rican flag from promoter Don King and threw it on the ground during a news conference to hype his showdown with island icon Tito Trinidad. A helicopter had to whisk him out of the roiling scene.
If Hopkins had even a smidgen of doubt that the judges got it wrong in Las Vegas Saturday, that was dispelled by the reaction he has enjoyed since handing over his four middleweight championship belts to Taylor.
"There's been a media frenzy," Hopkins said. "At the airport when I came back at 1 a.m. on the East Coast, there were 70 people at baggage claim, fans saying, 'You're still the champ.' I ain't emotional, but it hit me."
Hopkins, who can go consonant for consonant, vowel for vowel with master filibusterer King, said he was at peace with the events of Saturday, but he spoke with vehement passion for a prolonged stretch Tuesday night.
"I'm at peace with myself," he said. "No animosity. I exposed boxing. I've been called paranoid, but I exposed Taylor fully. He'll never be the same."
Hopkins said a split-decision judgment was a "robbery," but saved his harshest designation for the work of Ford, who gave the 12th round to Taylor even though the fading Razorback landed seven fewer punches, according to CompuBox.
"It was a heist," said Graterford Correctional Institution's most notable alumnus. "It was an out-and-out heist. It was worse than Eugenia Williams [who scored for Evander Holyfield over Lennox Lewis in their 1999 fight]."
In Hopkins' view, the controversial nature of the bout might serve to raise his stature in the sport.
"Controversy's made me a bigger star," he said. "[The judges] made me a controversial icon, on par with Ali, outside the ring. They made me the people's champion."
Hopkins' outspokenness and his blunt advocacy for increased fighters' rights, including an appearance before the Senate in 2003, he feels, have made him a potential target for payback from the sport's power players: "I wasn't paranoid at all. I was right. Saturday signified everything I stood up for the business being the way it is."
Asked whether he would have done anything different in retrospect, Hopkins refused to sneak a peek in the rearview mirror.
"No, no, no," he said.
Quality, not quantity, he said, is what the judges should have been seeing.
"You're damned if you do and damned if you don't," he said. "If I KO'd Taylor in the first round, then they would have said, 'He wasn't ready; we knew that.'"
Hopkins watched a tape of the fight Tuesday afternoon, he said. He lauded Roy Jones and Max Kellerman, part of HBO's pay-per-view broadcast squad, for interpreting the fight in his favor.
"Jim Lampley and Larry Merchant were cheerleaders with pom-poms [for Taylor]," he said.
The fighter said he had no idea media accounts of his alleged behavior at a meeting with HBO personnel Friday and at the weigh-in later the same day had portrayed him so poorly. Hopkins was surprised the Saturday morning New York Post detailed a beef with Emanuel Steward and Merchant, and later, Lou DiBella. The Post quoted DiBella thusly: "Hopkins told me he was going to drive me to suicide. That's a lovely human being."
Hopkins vigorously denied that he told DiBella, who won a libel suit against Hopkins and was awarded a $610,000 judgment in 2003, he would drive him to suicide.
"Call Richard Schaefer [Golden Boy CEO] -- nobody said nothing to Lou DiBella," Hopkins said. "I'd never say anything like that, like I expect no one say anything about my deceased mother."
Hopkins said the back-and-forth word war between him and DiBella should be played out by now and that it has been prolonged because perceived transgressions have been fed to the media.
"Why waste time on that he said, she said? That's girl stuff," Hopkins said. "There's business and there's personal, and if you can't separate the two, then get out. People are tired of our dispute. It gets old. It gets tired."
Hopkins will fight again in October, he said -- against Taylor if the new champion is healed sufficiently, or another foe if that isn't the case. In the meantime, he said, watch for his phone-in on Friday Night Fights on ESPN2 and watch the HBO replay Saturday night. Hopkins' final message:
"Love me or hate me, Bernard won that fight. The fans don't have to worry, I'm great. I'm at peace. I'm the champion of the people."
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