[Boxing] Hopkins defeats Wright
Posted by Ramon Aranda on 07.22.2007
Better than expected fight goes the distance.
Moments ago, Bernard Hopkins successfully defended his light heavyweight championship via 12 round unanimous decision.
It was a fight that included a little more action that expected as Winky Wright walked Hopkins down and tried to bully him around. Hopkins had Wright seemed to trade rounds early on as Wright had success by throwing more punches and using a frequent stiff jab to back up the champ.
In round 3, an accidental headbutt opened up a huge gash above the left eye of Winky that seemed to bother him for the remainder of the fight. The two would butt heads often throughout the fight but fortunately no other cuts were opened.
By the middle rounds, Wright began to tire as Hopkins was beginning to use better movement to avoid most of Wright's punches. Hopkins would throw quick combinations, though not landing them all, and side-step Wright which semmed to frustrate the challenger.
During the latter part of the fight, Hopkins was continuously warned for holding and punching on the break.
The championship rounds (rounds 10-12) all belonged to Hopkins as Winky looked exhausted. Hopkins was still having trouble penetrating the guard of Wright, but was landing the harder more effective punches.
In the end, Hopkins won a unanimous decision by scores of 118-112, 117-111 and 117-111, while I scored the fight 117-112 for Hopkins as well. Hopkins improved to 48-4-1 while Wright fell to 51-4-1.
Earlier in the evening, Oscar Larios defended his WBO belt against up and coming Jorge Linares. It was an action packed fight as both fighters took it to each other from the get go. Linares was landing the quicker, sharper and harder blows, but Larios put a lot of pressure on Linares and frequently smothered a lot of the punches.
Larios scored repeatedly with body punches but Linares would score with some of his own. As the fight wore on, Larios appeared to be tiring and the hard punches from Linares started taking their toll.
In round 10, a barrage of punches dropped Larios and though he rose to his feet, the referee had seen enough and stopped the fight. Linares won the WBC intermin featherweight title.
The bout was televised by HBO PPV.
