LAS VEGAS - It's a good thing Bernard Hopkins and Roy Jones Jr
. are better at boxing than filling out NCAA Tournament brackets.Like millions of Americans, the fighters made their picks for the Big Dance before the first game was played. Hopkins, from North Philadelphia, went with one of his hometown teams, Villanova, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the school's 1985 national championship by going with the Wildcats, the second seed in the South Regional. But having "The Executioner" in its corner didn't get 'Nova past the second round, a 75-68 upset victim of 10th-seeded Saint Mary's.
Jones, who - you might remember - once played a few games as a point guard for the Jacksonville Barracudas of the summertime USBL and fancied himself to be of NBA quality, went with No. 1 overall seed Kansas. Oops! The heavily favored Jayhawks fell, 69-67, to ninth-seeded Northern Iowa in the second round of the Midwest Region.
Hopkins-Jones II should begin sometime around 11 o'clock EDT, tonight, after the Final Four semifinals that pair Butler against Michigan State followed by Duke against West Virginia.
Jones a sore loser?
It has been 4 months since Roy Jones went to Melbourne, Australia, and was stopped in one round by Danny Green, but Jones is still contesting the outcome and hopes to have it changed to a no-decision.
Jones claims that, after he was knocked down, he arose and was clear-headed when referee John Foster stopped the fight prematurely. Jones and his trainer, Alton Merkerson, also charged that Green fought with loaded and illegal hand wraps and did not undergo a mandatory postfight urinalysis test.
"Prior to the fight, I had a young man go over to check out Danny Green's hand wraps," Merkerson said. "I told him exactly what to look for. He complained to the commissioner. They had something that once it gets wet, and you put it on, it gets hard afterwards.
"If I had known that prior to the fight actually taking place, I would have told them there was going to be no fight. I didn't know about this until the fight was over."
Doctored hand wraps are no laughing matter. Antonio Margarito is just coming off a year's suspension after getting caught with a hard substance in his wraps (his hands were then rewrapped to specifications) before his ninth-round stoppage by Shane Mosley on Jan. 24, 2009. But why didn't the young man Merkerson sent to Green's dressing room pass along what he supposedly saw before the opening bell rang?
Green recently wrote an "open letter" to Jones in which he advised Jones to man-up to his defeat rather than make an "endless series of excuses and false allegations."
Cross-country Naz
Bernard Hopkins' trainer, Naazim Richardson, has been up in the air a lot recently. He worked with Hopkins at his Miami Beach, Fla., training camp before flying cross country to Big Bear, Calif., to help another of his fighters, Shane Mosley, prepare for his May 1 showdown with Floyd Mayweather Jr. Then it was back to Miami Beach for more work with Hopkins.
Richardson, who will work B-Hop's corner tonight, will head back to Big Bear after the fight.
Odds and ends
For thrifty types accustomed to watching delayed broadcasts of pay-per-view fights the week after they happen, this will come as a disappointment: Hopkins-Jones II, as is the case with losing teams in the NCAA Tournament, is a one-and-done . . . Hall of Famer Sugar Ray Leonard will do color commentary along with Doug Fischer, with Joe Tessitore handing blow-by-blow. *
fernanb@phillynews.com
Source: philly.com
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