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Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KO) took Pavlik (34-1, 30 KO) behind the woodshed on Saturday night in Atlantic City, and handed the middleweight champ the first defeat of his pro career, with a lopsided unanimous decision victory in this 170-lb fight. The judges' scorecards read 119-106, 118-108, and 117-109. Since both men were deducted 1 point for various fouls during the fight, this means that the judges combined to only give Pavlik 3 out of a possible 36 rounds. And I think they were being generous. You could have easily made a case for BHop winning all 12 rounds. I do not think Pavlik hit Hopkins with a meaningful power shot the entire night, while Hopkins potshotted "The Ghost" all night, throwing and hitting Pavlik flush with relative ease. Pavlik had never seen hand speed, nor defense, like he saw from the Executioner on Saturday.
It was a virtuoso performance from the old man, remeniscant of his coming-of-age victory over Felix Trinidad 7 years ago, or his thrashing of Antonio Tarver 2 years ago. But this was even more special. Hopkins was about a 4-to-1 betting underdog. Even this boxing writer predicted a Pavlik victory (a KO no less!). As it turned out, Pavlik was lucky to avoid getting knocked out, as he was wobbled several times during the fight, including the 12th round, which was maybe BHop's most dominant.
Many chided the middleweight champ for taking this fight. The Pavlik camp pretty much said that there was no one else to fight, unless you wanted them to take a "meaningless" mandatory fight, which they already did in June vs. Gary Lockett (who was destroyed by Pavlik). Other fights were discussed, but nothing materialized until the opportunity to fight Hopkins came along, and they took it. A $4 million pay day, and a chance to fight perhaps the greatest middleweight champ of all time.
It turned out to be a stylistic nightmare for Pavlik. They might have thought that Hopkins (who averaged about 20 punches throw per round in his loss to Joe Calzaghe in April) couldn't hurt Pavlik, that Kelly would win based on sheer number of punches thrown. But if you would have told me before the fight that Hopkins was going to outthrow AND outland Pavlik... I would have thrown you out of the league. If you care, the final punchstats were as follows:
Hopkins: 530 thrown, 172 landed (32%)
Pavlik: 462 thrown, 108 landed (23%)
Most of Pavlik's punches landed were jabs that Hopkins seem to easily slip. While Hopkins left Pavlik's face bloodied and swollen. It was one of the most improbable results in recent boxing memory, and perhaps the defining moment of a surefire Hall of Fame career.
Where do they go from here? Hopkins called out Roy Jones after the fight...Jones fights Calzaghe on a couple weeks, and if RJ hands the Welshman his first loss, then we very much could be looking at a mega-fight rematch between two past-their-prime Hall of Famers. Even if Jones loses, the Hopkins fight could still come off, as BHop definitely wants some revenge from their first fight, a Jones unanimous decision victory way back in 1993 before both were even in their prime. And Calzaghe has basically said he won't give Hopkins a rematch, so forget about that.
As for Pavlik, he has to look at this as a lesson learned. He was definitely exposed as a fighter who will have trouble vs someone who moves as well laterally as Hopkins. The good news is, he's probably not going to see anyone with Hopkins' skill set anytime soon, AND he is still the middleweight champ. He has a mandatory title defense coming up vs. Marco Antonio Rubio, who won an exciting fight on the undercard. Rubio is a straight-ahead fighter who definitely is there to be hit. In other words, the perfect opponent for Pavlik to get back on track. But looming ahead at some point down the road, is the other consensus Top 2 middleweight in the world, Arthur Abraham. AA has a defensive style which is very tough to crack. At this point, it would not be a stretch to say Pavlik will be an underdog in that fight. But it will be a HUGE middleweight unification fight if/when it happens.
In terms of league implications, this is the first loss for a fighter in our league, as Pavlik's team, The Hitmen fall to 1-1, with 0 KOs and 1 DNMW (did not make weight).
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