Photo by Tom Casino/Showtime
On Saturday, April 19, 2014, Showtime Championship Boxing and Golden Boy Promotions presented an exciting 12-round Light Heavyweight unification bout between Bernard “The Alien” Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) and Beibut Shumenov (14-2, 9 KOs) for the IBF, WBA and IBA Championships.
The title bout was dubbed “History at the Capitol”–and with good reason.
Either Hopkins–at 49 years old–would finally show his age against a hungry, young fighter, or he would rewrite his own legacy–again–and continue his journey towards unifying the Light Heavyweight division.
What ringside observers and the fans at home witnessed on Showtime was Hopkins at his finest. The Philadelphia legend once again showed why he is a masterful craftsman and one of the greatest technicians of all time.
Round 1 started with tensions high as both men came out posing, posturing and looking to land the perfect shot.
Hopkins was comfortable letting Shumenov lead as he countered with precise shots. Hopkins’ focus began with a good jab as he touched Shumenov to the body and kept him off balance with feints.
It was a difficult round to score, but conceivably it could have been one of the rounds that the judges gave Shumenov.
In Round 2 Hopkins continued to move comfortably around the ring, making Shumenov miss most of his lunging punches.
Hopkins’ offense, while infrequent, was effective behind a stiff jab.
When Shumenov came forward throwing combinations, it was amazing to witness Hopkins show off the reflexes and quickness to simply evade shots by moving his head–with his hands at his waste.
Even knowing his age, you almost had to remind yourself that you were watching a 49-year-old man schooling a 30 year old.
In Round 3, Hopkins pulled out what would be his weapon of choice for the majority of the fight–the lead right cross.
The middle rounds produced much more of the same as Shumenov could not figure out how to get close enough and land more than one punch at a time, while Hopkins took advantage of Shumenov’s low guard and banged him with hard right hooks.
Again, the lead right cross was continuously on display and truly a thing of beauty as the crowd roared with approval every time the Kazakh champion’s head snapped back.
Hopkins looked comfortable the entire fight, showing off with his tongue out and even posing in the southpaw stance if only for theatrics in Round 6.
Photo by Tom Casino/Showtime
The ring generalship Hopkins displayed was—for lack of a better phrase—out of this world.
And just when you thought Hopkins was going to simply cruise to a decision victory, he pulled out one more wrinkle.
Shumenov–seemingly feeling his WBA title slipping from his grasps–tried turning up his offensive aggression and walked right into a beautiful short right, which was setup by a Hopkins jab.
Speaking after the fight, Hopkins stated that his trainer Naazim Richardson had been begging him to throw the shot which knocked Shumenov down because he was “open for it all night long.”
Shumenov was visibly shaken, but being the tough fighter that he is, he got up and continued to fight in much the same way, coming forward.
As Shumenov pressed on, his supporters were drowned out by chants of “B Hop, B Hop, B Hop.”
By the time the bell to end Round 12 rang, the actual scores seemed to be a mere formality.
But, we must never forget that this is boxing, and in boxing, bad judging is alive and well.
Although Hopkins was declared the winner by split decision–with scores of 116-111 Hopkins, 114-113 Shumenov and 116-111 for Hopkins–the ringside sentiment was one of shock.
How could anyone score the fight for Shumenov, especially with a knockdown?
In his post-fight interview with Jim Gray, Shumenov did not say that he felt he won and instead said that his strategy was obviously wrong.
Even with the scoring debacle, Hopkins would not be baited into coming down hard on the judges by Gray.
“Listen, when you get into all that about the judges and all that stuff, they go to school. They have commissions to regulate all that. I don’t like to get into all of that. It’s not my job to deal with that. It’s my job to get ready and to unify the championship before 50.”
With the win, Hopkins now holds the IBA, WBA and IBF titles and with his sites set on capturing the lineal and WBC titles from Adonis Stevenson, who will actually have the guts to pick against the ageless wonder?
If we learned anything tonight, it’s that Bernard Hopkins is not finished writing his legacy. We the people, the writers, photographers, commentators and fans must appreciate that we can watch Hopkins on his journey.
Shortly after the fight ended, we received an email from our friends at The Pod Index who announced that they will be conducting an official scoring review of the Hopkins vs. Shumenov fight due to the controversial scoring of the match. That review will be released within the next few days.
