Sergey Kovalev defeats Bernard Hopkins over 12 rounds……

Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev returned to unify the WBO, WBA and IBF light-heavyweight titles last night (November 8th, 2014) as he battled ageing legend of boxing, Bernard Hopkins. “B-Hop” was on course to make history, but was evidently stopped in his tracks by the younger fighter.

The punch stats for the fight are as follows:

Hopkins-Kovalev punch stats

Kovalev was simply the busier man, and beat the older man to the punch nearly every time. Ring craftsmanship and experience are priceless at this level of the game, but they did not stop Kovalev from rocking Hopkins with his massive power on numerous occasions. Kovalev claims the biggest scalp of his career, but there is no shame in this at the age of 49 for Hopkins.

“I’m very happy,” Kovalev said. “This victory was for my son Aleksandr. I was very excited he didn’t get into my head.”

“He was a really tough opponent. He is very good at keeping distance. I really respect him for the fight, but he needs to stop his career, I think, because he’s already done a lot in the boxing world and he needs to give an opportunity to younger fighters to be champions. I’m next.” As quoted by ESPN

What lays ahead for Hopkins? Well, you’d assume that retirement is the next step, but the former champion remained undecided in the post fight press conference:

“It’s 50-50,” he said. “I don’t really want to say anything. Everybody will have a long time to talk about my career when it is over. It’s been 50-50 for the last nine years. I’ve done what I had to do. I’m fine. Really, I’m fine.”

So the chapter closes on another huge fight for Bernard Hopkins, but it didn’t go his way. Sergey Kovalev defeats Bernard Hopkins, and takes a step up in to the elite level of modern boxing…..what a night.

I’ll post the highlights of the fight just as soon as they are available.