The Boxing Diary

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Sunday, December 18, 2016

Smith stops 51 year-old Hopkins

In the 2:28 minute mark of Round 8, Bernard Hopkins fell out of the ring after a series of punches landed coming from Joe Smith.

It was a bizarre scene to end an extraordinary 28 years boxing career that began in 1988. He was stopped for the first time during the final fight of his incredible career.

The 51-year-old Hopkins (55-8-2 32 KOs) was knocked out of the ring.

This happens to boxers who hang around a little bit too long. The sport will push you out of retirement. Well for me the best time for Bernard to actually retire was when he beat Beibut Shumenov. He got a title at that time, he was 49. But well, it was really tempting to have another shot at age 50. I think that was a record also in boxing. He lost to Sergey Kovalev when he was 50.



Well, for Hopkins it may look like a "controversial" loss because of what had happened. If he did not fell out of the ring, he could have got up before the count of ten and manage to continue. In fairness, he wasn't unconscious when he landed outside the ring.

But anyway, I hope this result will convince Hopkins not to fight again any more and sticks to retiring. He should not wait to be knockout cold out there. Just like what happened to Roy Jones Jr. in one of his recent fights.

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