I thought the fight was close..Bernard came on strong in the end but was knocked down 2 times early and had to overcome a huge lead...I was rooting for Bernard but felt he needed a KD to cement a win. I think a draw was a fair result and if they gave it to Pascal it would not have been a robbery, the fight was close and 2 knockdowns are big in a 12 rounder...I think a rematch is in order but I wont hold my breath
I like SS's scoring criterea and he sticks to it very well. I disagree on none of your rounds, I felt almost every round was well contested. Personally, I don't like giving even rounds as generally one fighter has the edge in some way. I felt Hopkins was controlling the type of fight it was in the close rounds so I edged towards him, generally. I have just finished quite a big article on the fight, although it is more of a study of BHOP, so when it goe sup I'll post it up here, as I think some of you guys might find it interesting. Also, I don't think Pascal will be the same ever again.
G, why do you think Pascal will never be the same? He ate about 5 times as much punishment from Carl Froch. Do you mean psychologically? Look forward to reading your piece.
Yeh psychologically. People are saying that Hopkins waited for Dawson to lose to take him on. I'm not too sure I'm thinking he was waiting for either Dawson or Pascal to ascend the throne and be on top of the world, full of confidence. What Hopkins did to Pascal, is what he did to Trinidad, Pavlik etc... He showed them their weaknesses, rebroadcast them to the whole world and exploited them majorly. Now imagine you just win the World title after a good display then you fight a 45 year old man, who shows everyone your weaknesses. I think it will ruin him, as even at the end of the fight he looked ruined, like a shell of himself. I explain it in my article in a bit more detail.
My scoring: 1 - JP 10-8 owing to the knockdown. I would not fault anyone for scoring it 10-9 because I think BHop was winning the round up to that point. 2 - Even. 3 - JP 10-8. Again, wouldn't object strongly if someone had it 10-9 because BHop was winning the round otherwise. 4 - BH 5 - Even. 6 - BH 7 - BH 8 - BH. Wouldn't strongly argue if someone had it even. 9 - BH 10 - BH 11 - BH 12 - BH. I had it 8-2-2 in rounds for Hopkins. 116-112 on points for Hopkins. To me, some of the hardest blows were landed by Pascal, but other than that, Pascal ran a lot, punched little, and initiated more clinches. Looking at the overall body of work, Hopkins was in control of this fight and did the better work. Using baseball as an analogy, Pascal went for home run swings, and landed them on occasion, but Hopkins won with many more singles and doubles that drove in more runs overall.
Agree with a lot of this, looking forwards to the read. Remember in Pavlik's corner? Even after the 11th they were trying to deal with the psychologicla trauma, "forget about this, non title fight, don't worry, not your weight..." etc etc. Didn't work though. Of course, maybe our guy will turn out to be very tough mentally. That would be nice.
Well, he fought through a dislocated shoulder so you'd like to think he had heart. Remember Pavlik had heart before Hopkins, now look at him. I think Pascal is ruined, you seen after the fight he was just deflated completely. This is why I call Hopkins the 'Truth Machine', if you aint technically sound (or a lot better than B-Hop) and/or very very resiliant chances are he is going to ruin you.
No doubt Hopkins exposed his weaknesses, but it's a big call to say it will ruin him. Guys like Pavlik and Trinidad got humiliated by Hopkins, but I thought Pascal, whilst getting outboxed after the midway point, was still performing at a reasonably competitive level and keeping most rounds close. If anything, Hopkins had to fight a little ugly to win rounds, almost Calzaghe-ing Pascal at points throughout the fight. It didn't have the air of a humiliating schooling to me. If fact, I thought Pascal did a reasonably ok job defensively, he didn't allow Hopkins to land many hard clean shots on him. If there was anything admirable about his performance (and imo there wasn't much) that was probably it. That said again, I thought Bernard's timing was quite a bit off compared to fights at lighteavy a few years back... He had slowed down a bit more this time round...
I also ended with 116-112 for Hopkins. I did score the first round 10-9 Pascal instead of 10-8. I saw it as a thorough schooling on the part of Hopkins. Maybe the best one I can recall since Spinks - Qawi (and no, Pascal isn't in Qawi's league). Impressive performance by Hopkins. A side note, Hopkins has no room to complain about blows to the back of the head because that's all he is giving his opponent to hit when leading with the top of his head. The top of his head is what caused the "knockdown" of Pascal in the 11th round. That's the only negative I have concerning Hopkin's effort. This does fall into borderline robbery for me. Other than a couple flash knockdowns, what did Pascal do?
Jean Pascal - Bernard Hopkins 1. 10-8 2. 10-9 3. 10-8 4. 9-10 5. 9-10 6. 9-10 7. 9-10 8. 9-10 9. 9-10 10. 9-10 11. 9-10 12. 9-10 111-115 Hopkins Official: 112-114, 113-113, 114-114