By Norm Frauenheim–
A few days after Oscar De La Hoya talked about upsets during a contentious conference call involving Danny Garcia’s perceived mismatch against Rod Salka , Bernard Hopkins scored the biggest one of the year with his decision to fight Sergey Kovalev in a many-sided move that is bold, risky and perhaps a lesson for a balkanized game divided by conflicting interests and colliding egos. Hopkins is taking a chance. Somebody has to.
Leadership is hard to find these days, but it was there in Hopkins, whose contract for a Kovalev bout in November is a declaration of independence from practices that are pushing the business beyond the fringe and into irrelevancy. It’s important, first and foremost, because Hopkins is still a fighter. He has several other roles, of course. He’s a promoter, street-corner philosopher, ex-con, CostCo customer and provocateur. Ex-promoters and feuding promotes, managers and advisors are everywhere with quotes and hidden agendas, yet not much in the way of solutions. They’re in it for themselves. But I can’t help but think that Hopkins is fighting for the craft that has made him wealthy in ways he could never have imagined as an inmate at Pennsylvania’s Graterford prison. He, more than anybody, knows what it has done for him.
An inseparable element is his relationship with Oscar De La Hoya and Golden Boy Promotions. De La Hoya is retired, yet he is a fighter whom Hopkins beat in 2004. They shared a ring and and now share an understanding of all that goes into what defines them. Circumstances surrounding the Hopkins-De La Hoya alignment still aren’t clear. Nevertheless, it has survived the Golden Boy shake-up that led to Richard Schaefer’s exit as CEO. In the wake of Schaefer’s resignation on June 2, there was reason to think the Hopkins, a limited partner in Golden Boy, would also leave De La Hoya’s company. Then, Hopkins told the media that Schaefer could not be replaced. About six weeks later, Hopkins signs for a Kovalev fight that strengthens Golden Boy’s prospects in an HBO fight.
The HBO angle, one of many, is a key. It means Golden Boy and HBO will be doing business again. HBO had not televised a Golden Boy fight since March 2013, when Hopkins beat Tavoris Cloud. In the week after the bout, HBO terminated its relationship with Golden Boy, which proceeded to work with only Showtime. The surprising twist in Hopkins’ return to HBO is that he had been expected to fight Adonis Stevenson on Showtime. Stevenson had jumped the shark, from HBO to Showtime, by signing with manager Al Haymon. Between then and the aftermath of the front office upheaval at Golden Boy, there was an evident change in Hopkins’ thinking. Instead of moving away from De La Hoya, he’s grown closer to him.
Thus far, Hopkins and De La Hoya have shown they can be an alliance with power enough to unify that part of the sport not already tied to Haymon and Floyd Mayweather Jr.
The HBO renewal represents a further step in De La Hoya’s promise to re-open doors slammed shut throughout the deadly feud between Golden Boy and Top Rank. First, De La Hoya approached Bob Arum, mending their relationship in a move that apparently enraged Schaefer. Then, Hopkins stepped up and said — through Golden Boy — that he wanted to fight Kovalev, a light-heavyweight promoted by Main Events. Within a day, the deal was done without one word that reminded anybody of the familiar rancor. What feud? The moment was a breath of fresh air for a suffocating business better at producing insults than great fights.
Make no mistake, Hopkins is also motivated by self-interest. A businessman has to be and Hopkins is a good one. Kovalev is an emerging threat, perhaps even more dangerous than Stevenson. Stevenson is powerful, yet emotional. It’s that emotional component that could have been manipulated by Hopkins, a proven master of the head-game tactic, an indispensable part of any good fight plan. Kovalev appears to be more sure of himself and less likely to be lured into a diversion that turns into defeat. Just a few months from his 50th birthday in mid-January, however, Hopkins is in a no-lose situation. The 31-year-old Kovalev will be expected to beat a man two decades his senior. If Hopkins win, a timeless legend marches on.
The fight’s timing, scheduled for Nov. 8, comes amid a decline in pay-per-view numbers and television ratings for non-PPV bouts. There’s not a whole lot on the horizon. Garcia-Salka in New York Saturday night? According to one betting site, Bovada, Salka is a 50-to-1 underdog. Manny Pacquiao-Chris Algieri on Nov. 22 in China? Algieri is a 16-to-1 underdog. Odds are, not many will watch either fight.
Meanwhile, it’s likely that Gennady Golovkin will retain his informal title as the world’s most feared fighter, which means he’s the one to avoid. It looks as if Puerto Rico’s popular Miguel Cotto will. There’s talk that Cotto, a newly-crowned middleweight champ, will follow up his dramatic stoppage of Sergio Martinez against Andy Lee in December in New York. Lee, an Irishman best-known for a loss to Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., is seen as safe stop before a big money clash in another chapter of the Puerto Rican-Mexican rivalry against Canelo Alvarez next year.
On Sept. 13, there’s Mayweather-Marcos Maidana at Las Vegas’ MGM Grand. But it’s a rematch, a remake, of Mayweather’s majority decision in May. It’s a second chance to see if Mayweather can get it right after running into a Maidana whose chaotic style appeared to unsettle him. It’s interesting, but the guess is that Mayweather will prevail in a careful, yet overwhelming fashion. He won’t hurt his claim on the pound-for-pound title. But he doesn’t figure to improve much on the pay-per-view numbers, reported to be between 850,000 and 900,000 for the first fight.
It looked like a dismal fall card, until Hopkins swiftly capitalized, filling a void with a light-heavyweight fight that promises to be a game-changer.
For him, his business partner and his craft.
