Hopkins still has what Jones lost

Bernard Hopkins finished his fight against Enrique Ornelas with a flourish Wednesday in Philadelphia. Photo / Ed Mulholland-FightWireImages.com


PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – Bernard Hopkins didn’t look like the Bernard Hopkins of 14 months earlier. But at least he didn’t look like the Roy Jones Jr. of about 14 hours earlier.

In his first fight since painting a masterpiece against Kelly Pavlik, Hopkins was decidedly less masterful against Enrique Ornelas in his hometown of Philadelphia, but the 44-year-old former middleweight and light heavyweight champion shook off the rust gradually, round by round, until eventually it looked like a typical “Executioner” exhibition. It wasn’t always pretty. It didn’t do anything to enhance Hopkins’ legacy. But it was a win.

And that stood in sharp contrast to the result produced half a world away by Jones. Hopkins and Jones were penciled in for a seniors tour superfight in 2010, but around the time Hopkins was waking up the morning of the Ornelas fight, Jones was TKO’d in 122 seconds by Danny Green in Australia.

As a result, the sense of importance surrounding the Hopkins-Ornelas tune-up was greatly diminished by the time the 6,662 spectators had taken their seats at the Liacouras Center. Hopkins-Ornelas was a pound-for-pounder and living legend against a gatekeeper. It was a nothing fight, but it was at least supposed to be a nothing fight building toward something. When you instead get a nothing fight building toward nothing, it sucks a lot of the electricity out of the air.

Maybe a slightly diminished sense of motivation could be blamed for Hopkins (50-5-1, 32 knockouts) not looking sharp at the outset of the fight. Or maybe it was a little rust, a little age and a little less training (as his softer-than-usual stomach suggested). Whatever the reason, Hopkins battled a classic old-boxer dilemma early: He saw the openings but couldn’t take advantage of them. He created distance and set up the predictable Ornelas (29-6, 19 KOs), but his timing was off and his punches were off the mark. The RingTV.com scorecard had two of the first five rounds going to Ornelas.

But none of the remaining seven rounds went to the underdog, as Hopkins gradually took control, gradually grew comfortable, gradually looked more like himself. It wasn’t a stellar performance, but it was still flat-out amazing for a 44-year-old fighter. Remember, 44-year-old fighters are supposed to look the way Jones did against Green.

But Hopkins had a very interesting take on how Jones looked against Green. After outpointing Ornelas by scores of 120-108, 119-109 and 118-108 (RingTV.com had it 118-108), Hopkins insisted he wasn’t ruling out a Jones showdown.

“It’s the way that you lose, and (Jones) lost on his feet, not on his back,” Hopkins said. “I don’t think the ref should have stopped the fight. (Joe) Calzaghe had him hurt worse than that and they didn’t stop that fight. I think I can still fight him. He went out on his feet, not on his back.”

Against a fighter like Hopkins, Jones probably wouldn’t be so lucky with the feet/back thing. And no matter what B-Hop thinks, the fight lost its marketability the second the first right hand from Green planted Jones on the canvas. So what are Hopkins’ other options?

He has one intriguing potential opponent in each of three divisions. At light heavyweight, he could face the younger, quicker Chad Dawson for the vacant RING title. At cruiserweight, he could challenge Tomasz Adamek for THE RING championship.

And then there’s the fight Hopkins is talking most about, a challenge of David Haye for a heavyweight alphabet belt.

Considering how he looked for the first half of the Ornelas fight, that sounds like lunacy. But if you consider how he looked in the second half of the Ornelas fight, once the rust had come off, it gets downgraded from sheer lunacy to just your garden-variety stretch of the imagination.

Certainly, Hopkins-Haye is no more ridiculous than Hopkins-Jones II just became.

On the undercard:

Sub-.500 opponent Guadalupe De Leon of Mission, Texas scored an upset over featherweight prospect Derrick Wilson of Fort Myers, Fla., coming on strong after a rough first round to win over two of the three judges and take a four-round split decision. Wilson, 5-1-1 (2 KOs), landed plenty of flush shots but couldn’t hurt De Leon, 8-9 (4 KOs), and by the third and fourth rounds, Wilson was breathing heavily and getting the worse of the exchanges. One judge had it 39-37 for Wilson, while the other two scored it 39-37 for De Leon.

Junior welterweight Danny Garcia, the most advanced of several Philadelphia prospects on the card, made surprisingly quick work of Mexican veteran Enrique Colin, 23-5-3 (19 KOs). Garcia, 15-0 (10 KOs), dropped Colin hard with a left-right combination in the closing seconds of the first round, then finished him with a sensational right cross to the chin in round two. Colin pitched forward from the impact of the punch and ref Steve Smoger counted to five before waving it off at the :55 mark.

Newark, N.J., prospect Mike Perez, 6-0-1 (3 KOs), prevailed easily in a junior welterweight bout against journeyman Ron Boyd, 6-10 (2 KOs), scoring three knockdowns in the second round and forcing the stoppage at the 2:09 mark.

Unbeaten Philadelphia junior welterweight Karl Dargan advanced to 6-0 (2 KOs) with a six-round points win over game Puerto Rican Samuel Santana, 2-3-2, the highlight being a second-round knockdown scored by counterpunching southpaw Dargan.

In a battle of Philly cruiserweights, Lamont Barnes, 3-3 (2 KOs), pulled off the upset over Teneal Goyco, 3-1 (1 KOs), taking a four-round majority decision.

In the show opener, welterweight Jessie Vargas of Las Vegas moved to 7-0 (3 KOs) with a second-round KO of trialhorse Travis Hartman, 10-16-1 (7 KOs).