Bernard Hopkins knew that after his split decision loss to Jermain Taylor in their first fight he would have to take the rematch out of the judges hands, to win this one, an execution would be the only way to assure himself a victory in the rematch. Still using the analogy of The Matador and the bull, Hopkins told everyone that he was going to load Taylor up with “Porcupine Pins” and when the time was right, he was going to knock him out, leaving no room for the judges to rob him again. But in a carbon copy of the first fight, Bernard let this one slip away early and when it appeared he had stuck Jermain with enough porcupine pins and could move in for the kill, he couldn’t pull the trigger and without being able to perform the execution, Jermain escaped with a close unanimous decision, retaining his belts and claim to the Undisputed Middleweight Title.
 

For all the anticipation, for all the hype and for all that was on the line, this fight turned out to be nothing more than a poor imitation of the first battle in almost every category.
 

From one judge scoring the first 6 rounds in Taylors favor, to Bernard hurting Jermain in the fight, only to have Taylor clutch his way out of danger, Hopkins/Taylor 2 gave us everything we saw in Hopkins/Taylor 1, but because we saw this act before, the ending was very anticlimactic.

Punchstats will tell you that Jermain threw punches at a dramatically lower rate than in the first fight, the same Punchstats will tell you that Bernard’s punch output increased. But as usual, you can go ahead and throw all that out the window. The judges saw Jermains early aggression to be effective enough to put Bernard in a big hole after the first six rounds, and although Hopkins once again came on in the second half of the fight and put Taylors will to the test, the judges did not feel he did enough to win…. again.
 

Bernard new that he had to KO Jermain if he wanted his belts back, so it should have come to no surprise of Hopkins or anyone else that when the bell rang to bring an end to round 12, and the fight, that Taylor was going to walk away with his Titles intact. Hopkins, the wise old veteran knew that was going to happen if the fight went to the scorecards, and it did, 115-113 Taylor on all three! Never mind that every respected writer at press row once again scored it in favor of Hopkins, because they all saw it that way the first time as well. Never mind that Thrill and Threat saw it in favor of Hopkins, we saw it that way in the first fight too, and most of you don’t put much into what we have to say anyways.
 

And would someone please tell me how Jay Nady ended up being the third man in the ring for these guys again. Dude did an awful job the first time and just like the rest of the night, his performance was eerily reminiscent of his first fiasco. When he told the fighters to touch gloves and they refused and his response was, “ Oh you don’t wanna touch gloves? Umm Okay!”, well he might as well have just pulled up a seat and sat ringside because from that point on he lost all his authority, if he had any to begin with!

I’d give you a round by round breakdown of the fight, but instead I will just refer you over to my blow by blow from the last one, I’m sure it will fit in nicely.  Instead let me try to wrap this one up as best as I can.

Bernard knew what it took for him to get his belts back, and he did not fully execute his plan, thus, he still is walking around without the belts he carried for many years, but his pockets do have an extra 10 million in them, so I guess he will learn to live without the belts.

As for Jermain, the World is now officially his oyster. If there was any doubt about Taylor’s heart and talent after the first fight, I think that doubt has now been laid to rest. He took the best Bernard had to offer, he may have been intimidated in the first fight, but he was not afraid of Hopkins at all in the rematch, the four whacks to the back of Bernards head early in round one showed that he learned a few things in the first fight as well. So where does he go from here? Rumor is he struggles to make weight already, so a move up seems to be on the horizon. Does that mean Lacy or Tarver? One can’t be sure.

The one thing I am sure about is that even if Hopkins makes his farewell fight in the light heavy division, Jermain and Bernard should never consider going at it again, as Bernard said in the post fight press conference, “It would be like beating a dead horse!”