16.10.08 – By “Old Yank” Schneider: “One Night Stand”; is there anyone among us that does not know what it means? It is a lot of effort for something that will go absolutely nowhere. And this is what Bernard Hopkins is facing come Saturday night. With each one night stand there is a losing party – usually you. When the night gets long and all the pretty girls are gone, it is time to be prepared to break out the bag to place over a head so ugly does not get in the way of a one night stand. The night has gotten very long; 43 years long; and now an ugly fighter is the only one left to dance with in the bar..
This ugly fighter had a lot of trouble staying awake for an entire event in his last one night stand against Joe Calzaghe. He barely had enough stamina to make it through the night. Earlier he was seen hugging Winky Wright once every 16 seconds in order to avoid what a real date is supposed to look like – another one night stand gone bad.
And now we see die hard fans (the ones that will always hang around to closing time), asking for another one night stand that can remind them of when the long past-it, 43 year-old, “last face” in the bar was once pretty.
That bag will come in handy. For those expecting a real fight to break out Saturday night, be prepared to use that bag as a barf-bag. There will be no real fight.
Oh, there will be a bag brought to the ring. That bag was once a toolbox – a Philly toolbox. Now it is a bag full of a lame bunch of tricks designed to hide skills long diminished. But the fans that always hang around until closing time have bought into that bag of tricks as if it contains enough makeup to turn the last face left in the bar into a beauty queen.
Well, for those of us that have resisted hanging around until closing time, we are not buying it. We have remained sober enough to make our picks when the night was still young. And when the night was still young, Bernard Hopkins was no where to be seen at closing time; he was too busy looking amazing on his way to building a legacy.
That was then and this is now. For those fans that have once again desperately hung out until closing time and found themselves waking up the next morning with the proverbial “one night stand”, how did she look the morning after? Was she as pretty as you remembered her only hours before when she was the last face in the bar?
It’s closing time fans! If you are picking Hopkins to beat Pavlik for Saturday night, you are going to be facing the same questions you face the morning after every one night stand you’ve lived through. And when you are stone sober you will do what you always do – you will take the bag off her head and you will question once again why you allowed yourself to fall for the “one night stand”.