Hopkins’ right ankle was hurting him too much to continue

BoxingNews24.com

By Jeff Aranow: After getting knocked out of the ring in the 8th, Bernard Hopkins would have climbed back in the ring last night to continue fighting against Joe Smith Jr. (23-1, 19 KOs) if he hadn’t injured his right ankle during the fall.

Hopkins, 52, says his ankle hurt too much for him to be able to continue fighting. Hopkins’ ankle was throbbing. Hopkins was stopped in the 8th when he failed to get back into the ring in the 8th in his fight against Smith Jr. at the Forum in Inglewood, California.

Believe it or not, this isn’t the first time in which one of Hopkins’ fights ended strangely with him falling out of the ring. In Hopkins’ first fight against Robert Allen in 1998, Hopkins fell out of the ring in the 4th round after referee Mills Lane attempted to break-up a clinch between Hopkins and Allen. Hopkins fell completely out of the ring on the concrete floor, where he suffered an injury and couldn’t continue fighting.

The contest was then halted and ruled a no contest. To Hopkins’ credit, he later fought Allen in a rematch in 1999 and stopped him in the 7th round. That was a much younger Hopkins though. We’re not going to see Hopkins coming back at age 52 to fight Joe Smith Jr. again to avenge his loss last Saturday night.

Hopkins fell out of the ring upon taking a series of shots from the younger 27-year-old Smith Jr. in round 8 of their scheduled 12 round fight. In looking at the fall in slow motion on replay, it doesn’t look like Hopkins’ right ankle came in contact with anything.

“It’s not like me to cry or be whiny about something, but am I happy with this? No,” Hopkins said about his loss. “Between the ankle and my head hitting the ground, I feel worse now than I did at 25.”

Hopkins has had bad luck with injuries in the ring. He was injured against Chad Dawson in their first fight in 2011 when Dawson picked him up and dropped him on his side. Many boxing fans thought Hopkins faked the injury in order to try and get out of the fight against Dawson. Hopkins did fight Dawson in a rematch in 2012, but he lost that fight by a wide 12 round decision to the younger fighter.

One judge unbelievably scored the Hopkins-Dawson II fight a draw. It was one-sided contest in the eyes of a lot of boxing fans. It was good that Hopkins didn’t suffer another injury. That would have been bad news.

“Time says it all,” said Hopkins. “I’ll be 52 in a few weeks. This was the fight I wanted, not a cherry pick. Who would think I’d be in the conversation around 2017? I was going to go back to the body. He was missing [his punches]. If you can take it, you can make it.”

Hopkins really wasn’t in any kind of conversation for 2017 other than him fighting a guy that many boxing fans felt didn’t deserve the high ranking that he was given by the World Boxing Council. Joe Smith is ranked #2 by the WBC. He can punch hard, but he doesn’t look as talented as many of the other contenders that are ranked below him in the WBC’s rankings. Hopkins chose to fight Smith Jr. instead of arguably tougher opponents like Artur Beterbiev and Oleksandr Gvozdyk.

“I didn’t know it was over,” said Hopkins. “I thought I’d have time to stand. We respect and love you. Now it’s time for HBO commentating and building champions at Golden Boy.”
Smith reportedly asked Hopkins for his autograph while he was still in the ring by asking him to sign his glove. That shows you the kind of respect Smith Jr. had for Hopkins. Smith is construction worker when he’s not fighting.

“It would be no contest,” said Hopkins’ trainer John David Jackson to Fighhype.com about a fight between Sergey Kovalev and Joe Smith Jr. “Joe comes in. All of his punches are wide. Sergey punches too hard. Sergey would punch holes through him. Joe’s a good fighter, but against Sergey, he’d be in trouble.”

Jackson also trains Kovalev. He does not see a fight between him and Joe Smith Jr. as being a competitive one. Smith Jr. has already said this week that he would like to fight the winner of the Kovalev vs. Andre Ward rematch. We’ll have to see is if that fight happens. Smith is ranked #5 by the World Boxing Association. If he’s to get a shot at the winner of the Ward vs. Kovalev fight, it would be a voluntary defense on their part. Smith Jr. would seem to be made to order for a puncher like Kovalev. Ward would out-box Smith Jr. unless he landed one of his big homerun power shots like he did against Hopkins. Smith’s punching power is undeniable. It doesn’t matter how good his opponents are. If Smith lands one of his shots with full power, he can take anyone out in the division.

Speaking about Hopkins, Jackson said, “When I saw him fight outside the ring, I was just shocked. I knew at that point the fight was over. The way he went down. I could see there was no way the fight could continue. I thought it was close. He was pot-shotting Joe. The fact that he didn’t duck Joe Smith, a guy that is dangerous, tells me that he deserves to be seen as one of the best fighters of all time.”

Asked if he thinks that this is the end of Hopkins’ career, Jackson said, “I know it will. There’s too many tell-tale signs that age is creeping up on him to continue boxing.”
“That layoff hurt,” said Roy Jones Jr. to Fighthype.com about Hopkins’ layoff. “The more time he takes off the more his body declines. He already said he’s going to stop. I ain’t got to tell him. He knows. His legs are done, because he’s been off for so long.”

“Bernard Hopkins was a great fighter, but tonight he was just an old fighter,” said former HBO commentator Larry Merchant to Fighthype.com about how Hopkins looked old last night.