THINK AGAIN

Where do we begin? De La Hoya, 31, looked soft in the middle at the division limit of 11st 6lbs (160lbs). He got hit more than I can remember in any of his fights. His punching power clearly has not travelled north with him through the weight divisions because he hit Sturm with everything he had and couldn’t budge the sturdy, ripped, 25-year-old from Germany.

There was a strangely dishevelled, almost “old fighter”, look about De La Hoya, the way his white trunks hung awkwardly around a protruding foul-proof protector.

He admits he will need to be in better shape and fight a totally different fight when he faces Hopkins in this same ring at the MGM Grand casino resort in Las Vegas.

The odds on Hopkins, who opened as a fairly modest favourite at about 8-5 on when the bout was announced, have widened significantly.

De La Hoya’s best chance in this fight, it seems, is that the 39-year-old Hopkins’s age will suddenly catch up with him.

It must be said, though, that Hopkins was no ball of fire when easily outpointing a passive Robert Allen in a desultory 18th defence of his middleweight titles, an affair booed from first round to finish by the crowd of 13,041.

The bad news for De La Hoya is that even if Hopkins has lost a step or two — or three, come to that — the Hopkins we saw outclassing Allen would still be too good for the De La Hoya who struggled through against Sturm.

De La Hoya talked about having a bad back in training camp and being under the care of a chiropractor. He said when he got into the ring, he had nothing. He called Sturm “ordinary”, which I think was a petulant acknowledgement of his own performance, a suggestion that he had come down to the level of his opponent.

At the post-fight press conference there was a distracted look about De La Hoya, almost as if, with the way cleared for the bout with Hopkins, he was wondering if he really wanted it.

Hopkins did his best to talk the fight up, saying he expects to see a different Oscar in the ring with him on 18 September than the one who faced Sturm.

“Oscar was making the fight, but Oscar didn’t box him the way I thought he would do,” Hopkins said. “You ask me how did I feel in the dressing room watching the fight [on TV] and I said my blood pressure probably went up, because I expected Oscar to box like I expect him probably to box me. But I doubt if Oscar will fight me the same way; it wouldn’t be wise to fight Bernard Hopkins like that.”

That’s an understatement.

The general mood on the dais was subdued, though, as if De La Hoya had dodged a bullet in this fight.

Promoter Bob Arum did not have the ebullient manner he has exhibited in the past after so many of De La Hoya’s big-fight victories. His mood seemed one of disappointment. He said that, no, he had never worried that De La Hoya was in danger of losing, and his own scorecard, he said, had Oscar winning eight of the 12 rounds, including “at least” four of the first five and two of the last three. His biggest worry of the night, he said, was that Hopkins might get caught by a lucky punch from Allen.

But it was clear that De La Hoya’s display was not what Arum had hoped for, hardly the ringing endorsement of the Hopkins match that, say, an inside-the-distance victory would have accomplished — or even a repeat of Oscar’s runaway points win over the last European he faced, the Spanish light-middle Javier Castillejo.

The feeling among many at ringside was that De La Hoya’s best chance against Hopkins is to come in close to the light-middle limit of 11st (154lbs) and use speed and lots of movement, the way he did against Felix “Tito” Trinidad in September 1999.

Certainly he must not stand in front of Hopkins the way he did Sturm. He knows this, as does his trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr, who talked of a “completely different” strategy for the fight with Hopkins. “It ain’t gonna be a slugfest,” he said.

“I thought Oscar won the fight,” Mayweather said. “I thought Oscar hit the guy far more than the guy hit Oscar. He did have problems with his back but we thought everything was all right. He said he had back problems, and that’s why he wasn’t moving his head. That worried me. But he told me his back was hurting, his shoulder was hurting, his hand was hurting.”

Robert Allen, having failed to offer a serious challenge in the ring, got in a post-fight dig at Hopkins and offered hope for De La Hoya. Speaking before Hopkins arrived at the press conference, Allen said: “I think he’s gonna have problems with Oscar — Oscar’s a little bit better boxer than I am. He’s gonna know he can’t stand in front of Bernard like he did with Sturm. He’ll make Bernard use his legs. Bernard don’t punch as hard as he did five years ago [when he stopped Allen in the seventh round in the second of their three meetings] — I was surprised.”

So those were encouraging words for De La Hoya. Frankly, at the moment, I think he needs all the encouragement he can get.

And so to the fight itself. There was dissent over the close but unanimous decision, with all three judges (Dave Moretti and Paul Smith of Las Vegas, Mike Glienna of Chicago) scoring the fight identically, 115-113 in De La Hoya’s favour although not all rounds were scored the same. Yet there was far more booing when Roy Jones Jr was awarded his majority decision win over Antonio Tarver at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas last November.

Sturm, naturally, thought he won, the normal reaction of a boxer who has been in a tough and competitive fight. Much has been made of the fact that De La Hoya, in post-fight interviews, did not come right out and say he thought he won, but my impression was that the Golden Boy (a moniker that more than ever seems outdated) seemed unhappy with the way he had boxed more than anything, like a singer who failed to hit the right notes. “I had to pull this fight out of the hat and fight hard, fight like a warrior,” he said. “There’s a few pains here and there, no big deal. Things happen in a fight. What can you do?”

The CompuBox statistics favoured Sturm but these punch-counts are no more than a guide and definitely not infallible.

In nine of the 12 rounds, De La Hoya got the vote of at least one of the judges, so a case could perhaps be made that De La Hoya won nine of the 12 rounds. However, the consensus score, which is the combined score of the three judges based on which boxer won a round on at least two cards, came out at 114-114.

It was, I think, that sort of fight: a lot of close rounds, a possibility of differing interpretations.

Sturm fought with ability, confidence and determination. I agreed with him when he said afterwards that he was the tougher guy in the ring. But I didn’t think he won. My scorecard showed De La Hoya winning, 116-112. I nearly marked the last round in favour of Sturm, which would have given me a score of 115-113 in Oscar’s favour, but I couldn’t do it. Although Sturm looked the stronger man at the finish (forget “looked”, he was stronger), De La Hoya had thrown a lot of punches in the last round, most likely punched himself out, and although under pressure in the final minute he had, I thought, stolen the round.

Indeed, De La Hoya needed the round to pull out the win: a Sturm round on the cards would have resulted in a draw.

I loved Sturm’s use of the left jab, I liked the way he popped De La Hoya with nice, quick little left hooks, right hands and uppercuts. He showed the ever-sceptical Americans that Europeans can fight.

De La Hoya, of course, threw far more punches than his opponent. A lot were blocked on Sturm’s secure, stonewall defence but I did get the impression that a number of body punches were getting through, under the German’s elbows, and when De La Hoya triggered off combinations on top I did feel that at least one or two were penetrating his opponent’s high guard.

There were a lot of rounds where I thought that Sturm fell just a few punches short of winning the round.

De La Hoya, with his far greater experience (more title fights than Sturm has had fights ) was, I thought, hustling his way through like the old pro he has in fact become.

Here is where I am supposed to point out the reasons why all those who thought Sturm won had got it wrong. Can’t do it. Sturm fought so well, if someone had him winning, or fighting to a draw, no argument here.

What I tried to guard against, though, was the temptation to give Sturm rounds because he was boxing so much better and being so much more competitive than generally anticipated.

Maybe I overcompensated in a round or two? It’s definitely possible. But all you can do is mark each round as you see it.

There have been suggestions that the judges “made” De La Hoya the winner to preserve the multi-million-dollar match with Hopkins in September. My belief is that, above all else, a world-class judge wants to get it right when he judges a fight. I know of a well-known American judge who was emotionally devastated for the criticism he received in giving a score that was widely perceived as being at odds with what actually happened in a recent championship fight.

I didn’t get any sense of outrage from the crowd reaction, just as the on-site viewers seemed generally accepting of the decision that Shane Mosley got against De La Hoya last September. Those who saw the bout on television seemed more inclined to believe that Sturm got a raw deal. I have long thought, though, that TV viewers are by and large led by the commentary. Yes, of course, we all have minds of our own, but, think about it for a moment: Can you think of one case of a disputed (or so-called disputed) decision in a televised fight in which viewer wrath over the verdict was inconsistent with the tenor of the commentary? I know I can’t.

In the first round, by universal ringside consensus his strongest of the fight, I thought De La Hoya might overwhelm Sturm as he came out fast and hard and banged to the World Boxing Organisation champion’s body.

Sturm, though, stood up to the initial bombardment, fought back, bloodying Oscar’s nose and even moving him sideways with a left hook. The German raised a glove going back to his corner, and I thought: “We’ve got ourselves a fight.”

As the rounds progressed, Sturm seemed to get even more confident. In the fifth he waved his right glove in the air after catching De La Hoya with a smart left hook, there were times when he gestured to the 10-1 on betting favourite to bring it or shook his head “no” after getting hit, and I had a strong sense that Sturm was enjoying the battle while his opponent was not.

De La Hoya seemed frustrated, extending his left arm like an old-time prizefighter as if trying to keep Sturm at bay, using his shoulder in the clinches in an attempt to shove him off (bringing a caution from referee Vic Drakulich).

It was a most difficult evening for De La Hoya, to be sure, and Sturm had, in my opinion, his strongest round in the 11th when he switched to the southpaw stance and slammed left hands to De La Hoya’s body and head (“DLH looks winded”, I scribbled in my notepad).

Again, in the last round, Sturm fought in the southpaw position, and he had De La Hoya backed up on the ropes at one point and looking flustered and fatigued, but the older man had one last rally in him and the crowd loved it as the two men traded punches in the closing moments.

And so Oscar got the win, becoming a six-division belt holder. But he now realises what it is like to be in the ring with a big, strong middleweight and it plainly was not a pleasant experience.

Actually the Sturm fight might have been what he needed in terms of sharpening his focus and making him more acutely aware of what he will be up against in September.

I believe De La Hoya will be faster, sharper and trimmer when he meets Hopkins

It goes without saying that he will have to be.

Hopkins, meanwhile, played it safe in winning a one-sided points victory over Allen, the judges scoring it 119-107, 119-107 again and 117-109.

The only highlight of this dreary affair came in the seventh, when Hopkins dropped his old rival with a looping right-hander. But Hopkins failed to finish a shaky and discouraged opponent and even allowed Allen to come back and sweep the eighth round in the scoring.

Apart from getting knocked down in the seventh, Allen had a point taken away in the fifth for a low blow after referee Joe Cortez had cautioned him twice previously to keep his punches up.

There were signs of slippage, for sure, in the champion’s performance because at one time when Hopkins had an opponent at his mercy he would never have let them off the hook.

The crowd wanted action but Hopkins didn’t oblige, throwing mostly single shots and then either moving away or clinching, while Allen never looked as if he really wanted to be there.

“I was safer tonight more than I’ve ever been in my whole career.” Hopkins said afterwards. “I knew that everything was on the line here, and we seen what happened less than a month ago with Roy Jones Jr.

“Let me tell you — the only one to beat Bernard Hopkins is Bernard Hopkins, and that’s why I stay humble, because if I lose that focus I can get beaten any given night.”

For additional coverage of this show, see July issue of Boxing Monthly