IBR on The Cruelest Sport

There is still a constituency that crushes on Hopkins; those who slurp up the bombastic rhetoric, and act like misty-eyed Holy Rollers at the mention of the renegade who fought the system until he could profit from it. For such acolytes, Saturday night must have been a veritable Bacchanal. Hopkins dusted off the Tickle Trunk for the hapless Murat, supposedly because he fancies himself an entertainer. It might be more genuine to say the Murat was dusted off for that purpose.

Continue reading One For The Holy Rollers: Bernard Hopkins W12 Karo Murat on The Cruelest Sport.

IBR on The Cruelest Sport

“Vastly superior minds have struggled to evaluate far more significant performances than the one that transpired last night at The Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, where Tavoris Cloud was schooled by 48-year-old Bernard Hopkins over 12 dreary rounds. Kierkegaard for example, dedicated the opening chapters of Fear and Trembling to exploring Genesis 22:1-19, trying to understand the nature of faith and responsibility to God through the performance that, to him, produced humankind’s greatest hero. If we are looking for some perspective on last night’s performance then, it is certainly available to us (although perspective is largely ignored by those eager to construct a Khajuraho monument to, well, anything).”

Read “Another Khajuraho Moment: Bernard Hopkins W12 Tavoris Cloud” on The Cruelest Sport.

IBR on The Cruelest Sport

“Bernard Hopkins, now 48, and at the mercy of increasing corporeal limitation, has adopted his own, inflexible, difficult, and dull approach; he too, trying to reduce the possibility of error, lest some such mistake sees him deprived of his daylights. There have been a few false moves along the way, including a draw with Jean Pascal and a majority decision loss to Chad Dawson in April. But in Hopkins’ rebellion de jour—directed this time against Chronos, Hopkins having largely dispensed with the anti-establishment rhetoric when Golden Boy came courting—he has managed to throw a fire blanket over the burning desires to cook his goose.”

Read “All Action Requires Forgetting: Tavoris Cloud-Bernard Hopkins Preview” on The Cruelest Sport.