Bernard Hopkins & Roy Jones Jr. - One of a Kind
by The Boxing Bulletin on Dec 11, 2009 2:07 AM EST
in Feature Stories
1 comment
With thoughts of a rematch all but over, Jeff Pryor takes a look at why one man has been able to stay at the top, while the other's best days are long in the past.
When it came to getting two legendary fighters into a ring together during their decades long feud, luck was not on our side. However, our luck has changed and fortune has spared us from seeing the ignoble battle between an ageless wonder who would have beat down a spent phenom.
Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr. each stepped into the ring on the 2nd of December 2009. One got blitzed out of the squared circle in a minute or two. Half a world away, the other did what he's almost always done, and controlled another man, under almost uncontrollable circumstances.
For two fighters who have been linked together, inexorably, throughout their long, storied careers, Hopkins and Jones never had much in common.
In short, Roy was the shooting star, catching eyes, and glittering across the firmament of the sport, while Hopkins was a long burning comet, trudging inexorably towards recognition, eventually outshining all his contemporaries like a Haley's comet of boxing.
Roy was an athletic marvel... Bernard a masterful technician... Roy was a freestyle improvisational showman... Bernard a strategy creating punisher...
It comes as no surprise that on a night when each was required to be the same for once, to each win a fight and in doing so finally bring these wayward foes together... even then their two paths could not coalesce. In victory or defeat, Roy's path was always spectacular, while Hopkins was merely impressive and reliable. Such as it was on December the 2nd.
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The arcs of their two careers, vary vastly. For Jones and his lightning fast strikes, the grade was steep. He came in with unreal athleticism that denoted his nickname of "Superman", and he shot to the top of the sport like a speeding bullet. There wasn't a lot he had to mature into, because his whole game was predicated on having unworldly speed that hid any deficiencies in technique or decision making. So while the pitch of his career arc rose up fast, the steepness of his fall was just as severe once those abilities eroded.
For Hopkins, it was a slow incline, which probably topped out around the turn of the century after nearly a decade in the sport, and has been falling off at a slow rate mitigated by his ability to get ever the more cagey.
The strange truth is that, in some ways, Hopkins has refined his game to the point where his physical prowess is just a minor part of his success, for his exploitable strengths are not the fallible invincibility of speed, power or even reflex, all of which fade in time as Jones has been finding out for years now, but instead, Hopkins has honed his instincts. That which may never leave.
While Jones dazzled with feats of live wire reflexes; sticking his chin out, gloves behind his back, and reacting to his opponents slightest twitch. Hopkins' instincts became his own form of dominating reflexes. Man made, through disciplined repetition, but as formidable as Jones' vaunted gifts once they had matured.
When Hopkins chin snaps onto his clavicle for protection, when he steps back giving way in mastery of distance, when he launches forward an off-beat right hand salvo, or lets an opponent run himself into the top of his lowered head... these instances are not nearly as flashy as a seven punch shoeshine, or a machine gun string of left hooks, but effective in a way that denotes quiet dominance.
If Jones is the shock and awe of a sudden frontal assault, Hopkins is the sneaking garrote of a Special Ops silent killer.
As he would tell everyone at the final press conferences leading into his bout against Enrique Ornealas, the hallmark of his career has been Discipline. Discipline in training before, and between fights. Discipline in the way he mentally prepares for his opponent and for the art of war.
And discipline in the way he fights on the night, when the heat is on.
Roy Jones, for all his natural gifts, never needed to learn much to be good at boxing, but he could have learned a thing or two from Hopkins. He didn't take the time to develop fundamental skills like tucking your chin, keeping your left up, staying off the ropes... He never had to, and in the long run, he's far worse off for it.
Roy's talents spectacular as they were at times, were not paid for in sweat and discipline. They were built into the fiber of his body. Now they've left.
Easy come, easy go.
It becomes clear, that what separates the two men, in their legacies, in their longevity, and how history will ultimately rank them... is discipline. Hopkins is the poster boy for discipline and hard work. Roy is the poster boy for flashy athleticism.
As it turns out, hard work and discipline pays off in the long run.
Long after Jones got blasted down to size by Tarver and then Johnson, Hopkins has been adding resume polishing wins to his ledger. In the same span Jones has suffered a string of embarrassing knockouts and defeats.
So as one marvel of the ring flamed out and hopefully hangs them up for his healths sake, one other has some thinking to do about where his long career goes from here...
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Jeff Pryor will be back on Sunday to take a look at the possible opponents that could be up next for Bernard Hopkins. |
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Well said
Jones was the greatest skill fighter of his generation. He basically did whatever he wanted in the ring and got away with it because he was so incredibly fast. Hopkins, on the other hand, was methodical in everything he did and wore most of his oppenents down gradually. I personally have a bad taste in my mouth that Calzaghe beat both of these men near the end of their careers and thus will be a hall of famer, when if he fought either one in their prime (he’s close to both their age), he probably would have been beaten fairly easily. If you now look at the “big-name” fighters Calzaghe beat, it’s looking worse every day (Kessler, Lacy, Jones, and Hopkins, with the 40+ year old Hopkins looking like the only real impressive win now).
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