24.02.04 – By Daniel Baguley: Isn’t it great that big fights are coming together these days? If you look up and down the divisions, there are attractive match ups occurring in most at the moment. It seems as if the alphabet champions are looking for genuine respect and if you look at divisions from feather to light middle there are plenty of contenders gunning for those same guys. This is obviously great for the sport and has certainly re-ignited my enthusiasm for the sport in a big way.
So it comes as a surprise that the super fight to out shine them all this year will occur in a division that seemed as if the lifeblood had been drained from it. Middleweight. For many years it was the banner division but over the last few years has become a barren place where one man has ruled with an iron fist dishing out severe punishment to all that have dared face him. Bernard Hopkins has been a superb champion. He has made seventeen straight defences of his IBF middleweight title and also holds the other two major alphabet titles. But this man doesn’t need the recognition of any money grabbing sanctioning body to call himself a champion. Since his twelve round loss to Roy Jones in 1993 he has stopped fifteen opponents in twenty-three fights. Not bad for a man who lost his debut fight!.
At 39 Hopkins, in his last fight, showed no sign of slowing down whilst dismantling William Joppy over 12 rounds. So what now for Bernard? Retire? Put his feet up and enjoy the money he has worked hard for. No chance. Many people feel Bernard has failed to capitalise on his career defining moment when stopping Felix Trinidad in the last round of their World Middleweight Title fight. I’m not about to go into the ins and outs of this but the fact is he hasn’t earned the millions that people, including him, feel he deserves. Well that could be about to change. Another modern great has thrown his name into the hat and, all going to plan, could become the biggest grossing prize fight of all time outside the heavyweight division.
Oscar De La Hoya has been a great ambassador for the sport and his star quality has made him a one-man empire. He has held alphabet titles in five divisions and many felt he was unlucky whilst losing his World Light Middleweight title over 12 rounds to Shane Mosley. It looks unlikely these two will be fighting again anytime soon as Shane Mosley has his own plans for the future. So where to go for Oscar? Don’t be fooled by his movie star looks, the man has the heart of a true fighter and has expressed an interest in fighting for the World Middleweight Title. A win here for Oscar would once again place him as one of the true pound for pound greats and as for Hopkins this would finally give him another huge marquee name to earn his worth against.
The plan at the moment seems to be a double-header show in June with Oscar taking on Germany’s Felix Sturm and Hopkins taking on his IBF mandatory Richard Allen who he has stopped once before. These fights should be a formality going on current form and will drum up huge excitement over their planned “super fight” in September.
Its always good for boxing when two of its leading stars face each other but I just wonder if Oscar is thinking carefully enough about this. A step up to middleweight could be a step too far against a life long middle in Hopkins and after looking at the state the middleweight champ left William Joppy in, Oscar would be a sure outsider.
I don’t see Oscar having the power to worry Hopkins and see him being able to walk Oscar down but I’m not about to write off or underestimate De La Hoya who has surprised people in the past. Before we start placing bets lets first hope the fight actually happens because Hopkins has a nasty habit of pricing himself out of fights but I’m sure even he will see this is his last chance to snare one of boxing’s true modern greats.