Why was Larry Merchant arguing with Bernard Hopkins

If Merchant had been 20 years younger he'd have whipped Bernard's ass!

 

But Hopkins was fighting his mandatory. What would Merchant have him do, be stripped?

 

And HBO sat there and agreed to air it.

 

A better response from Hopkins would have been "I agree it was a mismatch but he was my mandatory, I'm not giving up the belt because they forced to take an easy fight. Take it up with them."

 

Most words out of Hopkins’ mouth could be phrased more eloquently and less aggressively.

 

Historically, I would totally agree with you. But, at that point of his career, HBO-backed fighters like Hopkins had the ability to dictate who they were fighting. As infrequently as Hopkins was fighting at that point (less than twice a year) there was no call to be fighting talentless no-hopers like Hakkar. There is no legitimate way Hakkar should have been a mandatory fight. Hakkar wasn't undefeated, and, had never beaten a fighter in the top 20. In fact, he never beat a top 20 (or likely even top 40) fighter in his entire career. When the sanctioning bodies pull bull**** on a guy as famous as Hopkins, he should have stood up to it and said no.

 

I remember when Hopkins knocked out DelaHoya Larry Merchant ask Oscar if it was OK if they showed the replay.

 

Nobody could do much about low level mandatories.

The main issue, was Bernard calling the JMW champs to go up and fight him.

Bernard should have moved to SMW, or LHW earlier.

 

He did.

 

This happened to many fighters. And it was a big issue if anyone had become an undisputed champion.

It happened to both Bernard and Roy.

It was great when they become undisputed.

But afterwards, they both signed contracts with HBO/Showtime, where they both had mandatory obligations from all 3 of the main organisations.

There’s not a lot anybody could have done.

If either had said no, they’d have been threatened with stripping them.

And the only thing the networks could do, was to have a clause where they didn’t air the low level mandatories.

Other than that, I’m not sure what could have been done.

Hopkins shouldn’t have been criticised for fighting Hakkar.

But he should absolutely have been criticised for having called out the JMW champions to have moved up to face him.

 

This is the thing.

They should have had a clause in their contracts, not to have aired the low level mandatories.

What could the fighter have done?