I can't believe the disrespect Bernard gets on this board.
It was a good win for Kovalev and there's no shame losing to a guy that powerful and in his prime.
Bernard Hopkins is a legend who carried boxing on his back in the 90's along with Jones Jr and Toney and and even carried it further after the millennium.
He has defied father time again and again and proved his critics wrong for almost a decade when they said he was getting "too old".
Like a said, there's no shame in losing to a younger, hungrier and stronger fighter.
He has had an illustrious career and was already considered 'a terror' and one of the greatest fighters before he took Trinidad's crown. That was 13 years ago.
It's time for Bernard Hopkins to pass The torch. And it will be exciting to see where Kovalev goes from here.
One of the finest boxers ever. Amazing how long he has fought. I hope he retires and trains fighters because I believe he could become one of the best trainers because he would never let his fighters slack off.
I scored it 7 rounds to 5 for Kovalev, but obviously a 10-8 round in the first.
I definitely thought Hopkins controlled about 4 or 5 of the rounds with his distance and making Kovalev miss. If Hopkins was a little more active then i'd have no problem scoring the fight either way.
Great win for Kovalev much respect to Hopkins, Been telling people Eastern Europeans have more than just power, their the best amateurs in the world right now. So they got the skills and the power. Also people making excuses are the same ones that were saying B-hop was going to school Kovalev.
I can't believe the disrespect Bernard gets on this board.
Hopkins is going down as one of the greats of the generation anyway. I doubt anybody is implying he's not a great boxer. But the guy already pushed himself way past expectations. He's lucky he didn't get his head punched off in this fight tbh.
Admirable finish from Hopkins. Not a bad way to go out! I got a sense of pride from it all, I could hang onto that as Bhop final ring memory.
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Nice systematic, patient performance from Sergei.
I felt Hop was wrong about Kovalev from the beginning, especially in the athleticism department.
I think this fight showed how quick to recover Kov is..even at 49, B-Hop is still angular as hell but one of Sergei's qualities is that he is always balanced and in position to get full power; and even with long arms, his punches are some of the shortest in the game
Respects to both
Many were underestimating Kovalev's athleticism. I remember a prediction on youtube (picking B-Hop to win) saying that Kovalev was slower than Murat/Cloud/Shumenov, ****ing delusional.
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