BERNARD HOPKINS W12 KELLY PAVLIK

All anyone can do, really, is marvel at the boxing exhibition that Bernard Hopkins put on in outclassing Kelly Pavlik on Saturday night. The fans at Boardwalk Hall and the millions watching on TV around the world saw a performance that was little short of astounding.

As Jim Lampley said at the conclusion of the HBO PPV presentation, Hopkins has shown that, with modern nutrition and training methods, 43 doesn’t have to be old for a fighter, although as he noted it certainly helps to have the discipline and gym-rat mentality of this remarkable fighting machine.

This was the fourth time that Hopkins has gone into the ring as the underdog and outclassed his opponent. It happened in his fights with Felix Trinidad, Antonio Tarver and Winky Wright, and now it’s happened again.

Hopkins, it has to be acknowledged, is a throwback to the great ring mechanics of yesteryear.

The general belief was that Pavlik, the younger man by 17 years, would keep pressing in on Hopkins, make him use his legs and gradually close the distance and start to pull ahead with hard work and a high punch-output. It never looked like happening.

This fight makes Joe Calzaghe look very good for having outworked and outhustled Hopkins in April.

While Pavlik isn’t as fast as Calzaghe it was thought that he could make up for it by landing heavier shots than those thrown by the Welsh boxer. Landing shots was the whole problem: Pavlik could hardly hit Hopkins.

As one of the majority who thought Pavlik would win, I felt that Hopkins was showing signs of age in the fight with Calzaghe. In fact it was Calzaghe’s fast pressure and rapid-fire delivery that was wearing out the older man. Pavlik, with his deliberate and, I regret to say, predictable style, was made to measure for Hopkins, who gracefully moved from side to side, in and out and, to my surprise, threw more punches per round than he has in a long time. He kept doing it for 12 rounds, too. This wasn’t like Hopkins’s fights with Jermain Taylor in which he didn’t really start letting his hands go until the later rounds.

On Saturday night, Hopkins was punching fast and often from rounds one to 12 inclusive, and for a brief moment in the last round he even looked like stopping Pavlik, who gamely stuck it out to the final bell.

A concern I had that Pavlik might not be as effective or as hard punching at 170 pounds as he is as a middleweight was quickly borne out. Admittedly Pavlik never landed a really flush shot, but the power just didn't seem to be there anyway — there was never the sense that even if he could hit Hopkins he could turn things around.

This isn't meant to detract from Hopkins's dominance: he was much the better fighter. The weight of 170 pounds favoured Hopkins, but the 160-pound Hopkins of the Tito Trinidad fight would also, I think, have given Pavlik a boxing lesson.

This high rate of punching from Hopkins, on a consistent basis was, as Emanuel Steward noted in the HBO PPV commentary, the most surprising thing about the fight. Also surprising was the fact that Hopkins, moving smoothly, unruffled and relaxed, looked like the young man in the ring, while Pavlik, plodding and perplexed, had the look of a fighter in his 40s. It was quite remarkable to watch.

This fight was one of the reasons why I never like to miss a boxing show. You never know what is going to happen. It’s easy now to say that Pavlik was made for Hopkins, but not too many were saying it before the fight, and some of the most astute players among the sporting types who read this site, consistent winners and a big plunger or two, took the hit for guessing wrongly. That’s boxing, though. It is a sport where no matter how long and how closely one has followed it, one is learning all the time, and that is the beauty of it. Hopkins taught me a lesson on Saturday night: Never underestimate a veteran who, even if his age is advanced, plainly and simply knows how to fight.

Hopkins showed how artistry, guile and years of hard-won experience — and of course a very high level of physical fitness — can overcome a so-called age handicap. I was even a little bit in awe at the display of boxing he put forth for our entertainment. Yes, entertainment, because this was a highly entertaining — if one-sided — bout. So much for our mistaken belief that all Hopkins fights are bound to be boring. That was something else we got quite wrong on this extraordinary evening.