{"id":5411,"date":"2010-11-08T00:00:59","date_gmt":"2010-11-08T04:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=5411"},"modified":"2010-11-07T23:07:43","modified_gmt":"2010-11-08T03:07:43","slug":"old-school-vs-new-school-bernard-hopkins-showdown-with-jean-pascal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/?p=5411","title":{"rendered":"Old School Vs New School: Bernard Hopkins Showdown with Jean Pascal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Gina L. Caliboso<\/strong><\/p>\n

Old school versus new school: Whenever I hear those particular terms, I think about my childhood growing up in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Even though my growing up directly translates into going to Catholic school, working class parents, and living in the suburbs, I still consider myself old school. For example, old school \u2013 I walked every day to and from school. New school \u2013 walking to school \u2013 not necessarily these days. <\/p>\n

Old school, I used to tape record music off the radio. New school, I have an Ipod. You see where I\u2019m going with this? Old school \u2013 Los Angeles Lakers, Magic and the show at the Forum in Inglewood. New School \u2013 Los Angeles Lakers, Kobe, and the Staples Center.<\/p>\n

For anyone that follows the NBA, the season starts very, very soon. But enough nostalgia. On December 18th, two fighters \u2013 one old school \u2013 Bernard \u201cExecutioner\u201d Hopkins, 51-5, 32 KO\u2019s goes up against new school \u2013 Jean Pascal, 26-1, 16 KO\u2019s. With Pascal\u2019s WBC Light Heavyweight belt at stake, old school versus new school.<\/p>\n

Who is going to win?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk new school first.<\/p>\n

As far as Pascal is concerned, I\u2019ll just call him the youngster. When I went through my DVR list, I still happened to have Pascal\u2019s last fight from August against \u201cBad\u201d Chad Dawson. As I listened to the HBO broadcast, both Larry Merchant and Emanuel Steward made reference to Pascal\u2019s particular Roy Jones, JR., style of fighting. I am not suggesting that Pascal is the new Roy Jones, JR.<\/p>\n

In his prime, Jones\u2019 speed and athleticism was and truly a gift. He had excellent timing and made his KO\u2019s look effortless. More importantly, Jones\u2019 speed complimented his athleticism. When you recall Jones\u2019 fighting prime, he would have his hands down and would pull of a KO hook to his opponent\u2019s head. There aren\u2019t too many boxers that can pull off that type of fighting style.<\/p>\n

Similarly, once Steward and Merchant made reference to Jones, JR., I couldn\u2019t help but see how it\u2019s a correct comparison. In his fight against Dawson, Pascal looked strong, but there were times in the mix, that he got caught with Dawson\u2019s cross that wobbled him. He doesn\u2019t fight as well when he is against the ropes and when he backs away from his opponent.<\/p>\n

At further analysis, his Jones\u2019 imitation fighting style is just that \u2013 an imitation. Pascal is a strong fighter in the middle of the ring, and when he pulls together a strong and effective combination flurry of punches, he will win a fight. But he needs to learn how to fight off the ropes and on the inside. He also, as Steward mentioned, \u201cplays to the crowd.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since Pascal has only fought in Canada, this particular part of his personality assists in his being an entertaining and exciting fighter. To date, Pascal has only suffered one loss against Carl \u201cCobra\u201d Froch back in December 2008, for the WBC Super Middleweight title that went to a 12 round unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

After Froch, Pascal soon put himself into the light heavyweight division and has yes to lose. Pascal first met Adrian Diaconu, for the WBC Light Heavyweight title back in June 2009 and defeated him with a 12 round unanimous decision. He followed up with a title defense bout against Silvio Branco in September and came away with the 10th round TKO. Pascal decided to give Diaconu another shot and defeated him with yet another 12 round unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

Finally, this past August, Pascal fought against Dawson and defeated the American fighter with an 11th round TD. As he ends his 2010 fight year, the youngster Pascal faces a very, very different opponent \u2013 the veteran \u2013 the old school fighter, Bernard \u201cExecutioner\u201d Hopkins.<\/p>\n

From previous articles, I admit that I still don\u2019t see why Hopkins remains in boxing. There\u2019s nothing more for him to prove to the boxing world, but I suppose that\u2019s exactly why Hopkins doesn\u2019t retire. Maybe he has more to prove to himself. His last two fights went under the radar without much hype. Even in his rematch against Jones, JR. it was met with more criticism rather than excitement. Hopkins went on to defeat Jones, JR. over 12 rounds with a unanimous decision. Hopkins\u2019 last loss was against now retired Welsh fighter Joe Calzaghe back in April 2008. Calzaghe went down in the 1st round and Hopkins pulled off the split decision over 12 rounds. I don\u2019t need to go over all of Hopkins\u2019 previous fights, but I will recall two bouts that showed how a veteran fighter can defeat a younger fighter.<\/p>\n

Think about Hopkins when he fought against Golden Boy Oscar De La Hoya the perfectly timed body shot that sent the younger De La Hoya to the mat and could not recover. The De La Hoya bout took place back in 2004 and ended in the 9th round. It was the last fight that Hopkins took that ended in less than 12 rounds. Since 2004, all of his fights have resulted in 12 round unanimous or split decisions \u2013 a lot of rounds for the veteran boxer. I then think about the Hopkins that outboxed a younger and promising Kelly \u201cGhost\u201d Pavlik with a 12 round unanimous decision.<\/p>\n

In both fights, Hopkins was the older and more experienced fighter and he showed it \u2013 by boxing and outboxing his opponent. Hopkins is not the most exciting fighter, but he is technical and tactical. It\u2019s old school \u2013 a fighter that fights and doesn\u2019t always go for the KO.<\/p>\n

Because I always root for the underdog, I\u2019d love Hopkins to win this bout. Also, Pascal should be ready to box and cultivate his boxing style to include more jabs and effective combinations. Pascal will have to fight off the ropes and on the inside. Should the younger Pascal win, it\u2019ll be considered a learning experience and he should be so lucky that he was able to fight and possibly win against a tactical and experienced fighter as Hopkins. Pascal would definitely beat anyone after he fights Hopkins because he can only get better and hopefully learn.<\/p>\n

By contrast, there\u2019s still some fight on Hopkins\u2019 part. So, I end this article with a thought of both fighters \u2013 old school versus new school \u2013 who will win? I\u2019m old school so I\u2019ll root for Hopkins. As for the new school, Pascal still has a few things to learn, and Hopkins just may be the one to teach him.<\/p>\n

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By Gina L. Caliboso Old school versus new school: Whenever I hear those particular terms, I think about my childhood growing up in Los Angeles. Even though my growing up directly translates into going to Catholic school, working class parents, and living in the suburbs, I still consider myself old school. For example, old school […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[81,105,1101,2027,895],"class_list":["post-5411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing-news","tag-bernard-hopkins","tag-boxing","tag-jean-pascal","tag-new-school","tag-old-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5411"}],"version-history":[{"count":-3,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5411\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ringsidereport.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}