Hopkins outclasses Ornelas
Bernard Hopkins (50-5) returned to the ring tonight with a unanimous decision victory over Enrique Ornelas (29-6) in his hometown of Philadelphia. The judges scorecards after 12 rounds read 118-110, 120-109, 119-109 in favour of the 44 year old.
It was a classic Hopkins performance, and one in which he showed no signs of slowing down following a long lay off since his upset of Pavlik last year. Enrique Ornelas acquitted himself decently, but he just had no answer for the questions Hopkins posed. The first four rounds were pretty even, but from round 5 onwards The Executioner dominated. He was patient, looked for openings, and punished his opponent. He had Ornelas hurt on several occasions, and forced him to just hold on in the final round.
Hopkins went out there tonight with the same mentality he had in the Pavlik fight. It was almost like he felt that he still had something to prove. OK…this was a fight Bernard was expected to win, but it’s still remarkable that he can continue to perform at this level.
Earlier today we posted footage of Roy Jones knock out loss to Danny Green. In his post fight interview, Hopkins denied that a fight with Jones was definitely off. He implied that Jones was the victim of an unjust stoppage. He felt that Roy deserved more of an opportunity to recover given his vast amount of ring experience. It would be a good pay day for both guys, and I’m sure it’s still the fight they want, but is it a fight they can still sell?
If they do decide to make that fight, It’s going to be the subject of much controversy. Do you believe it’s still the right fight to make?
I think they can make it a pretty good HBO offering. I don’t think I’m paying $65 bucks for it though.
It still seems strange to me to hear 65 bucks for a ppv. It just sounds like a huge amount. I guess it’s because PPV has never really taken off here. The only things that they ever put PPV is Ricky Hatton or Amir Khan fights, and a handful of WWE events. And they can only really get away with charging about 20 Euro for those.
I think Pac/Cotto was $65 in HD. Regular definition is $55.
Like I said, I think it’d be a good HBO fight, but it will die on PPV.