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Every sports cliche applies to this match-up. It's Eastside vs. Westside. The Bad Boys vs. Showtime. Old School vs. New School. The down and dirty workman-like tactics of Hopkins against the shoeshine flash and flair of Oscar. And on and on and on.
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In all honesty, I haven't read one article or column about this fight (until I re-read the first draft of the one you're reading). But, I did see Bernard Hopkins one time on The Best Damn Sports Show and I liked what he had to say.
I'm a boxing fan therefore I like Bernard Hopkins.
So without paying attention to the hype machine surrounding this fight I can figure out more or less what is being said:
"Oscar has never been in there with a real Middleweight," or "Bernard is 39, how much more can he have," or "If Oscar comes into this fight like he did against Felix Sturm he going to get his block knocked off."
All these things are true and do shed some light on to the possible scenarios in which each man could find himself victorious.
Obviously, Oscar isn't going to come into this fight with the same strategy employed against Felix Sturm. It's impossible to imagine him throwing caution to the wind and fighting Round One of this fight with the reckless abandon and sheer disrespect for his opponent that he demonstrated in the Sturm fight. If he does it will surely be the quickest 20-30 million dollars ever earned by anyone in the history of the planet.
In that fight Oscar made a caricature of himself and Felix Sturm did exactly what he was supposed to do. He lost. Poor Felix.
Oscar has many faces and many styles. It's a bag of tricks from which to choose. We've seen many of them over the years. Will Oscar go toe-to-toe with Hopkins like he did against Julio Cesar Chavez? Will he box and move like he did against Felix Trinidad. Or will he stand flat footed and hunched over like he did against Ike Quartey.
More than likely Oscar will move and try to give Hopkins angles piling up points and doing lots of flurrying at the end of rounds. He'll try to steal rounds much like Ray Leonard did against Marvin Hagler back in 1987. But will that work with the judges? Has the boxing public and our collective consciousness or conscience learned anything from the wounds created by the Hagler–Leonard decision? Have we healed yet? It's hard to say.
Where Oscar has lots of styles and lots of reasons for his styles Bernard Hopkins has but one style. He wins. If you ask Bernard Hopkins what his plan for the fight is he'll tell you he's going to win. That's the plan. On the other hand if Oscar is asked the same question he might say something like: "The fans will see an Oscar de la Hoya that they've never seen before."
Hopkins game plan is to win. Eighteen straight title defenses bare this out. The man wins, plain and simple. We've seen him win one handed, we've seen him win two handed, we've seen him win ugly and we've seen him knock guys out. And we've seen him beat Robert Allen three times.
So without getting into the X's and O's of who will land the jab more, who will counter better or go to the body more effectively let's try to break down this fight from a purely aesthetic standpoint. What is this fight going to look like?
Truth be told, it's probably going to look a lot like Bernard Hopkins winning.
