HOPKINS' LOSS IS A BOXING TRAVESTY.

Byline: ROBERT MORALES Boxing

Bernard Hopkins had made a record 20 middleweight title defenses heading into his fight with Jermain Taylor on Saturday in Las Vegas.

For him to lose his undisputed championship and have his unprecedented title defense streak snapped on a controversial - if not ridiculous - decision is a crying shame.

Out of the three judges, only Jerry Roth had it right. He scored Hopkins the winner, 116-112. Duane Ford and Paul Smith were dead wrong scoring Taylor the winner by 115-113 counts.

We see this all too often, where three so-called expert judges have completely different scorecards. What were Ford and Smith watching?

Did they not see that Hopkins was avoiding 81 percent of Taylor's punches, according to statistics taken by CompuBox? Or did they believe that Taylor's punches were landing because the 4,000 fans who traveled from Arkansas to see their hometown hero roared every time Taylor threw a punch?

Taylor was missing punches by a foot, but the Razorbacks were going hog wild. Judges, especially Ford and Smith, who have been around a long time, are supposed to be better than that.

What makes the decision worse is that Hopkins is a fighter with a game plan, which he executed masterfully Saturday. For Hopkins, it's like building a house. First, he sets the foundation in the early rounds, and then goes about putting the finishing details on in the later rounds, which is what he did Saturday.

In contrast, Taylor admittedly got off his game plan.

``I was wasting a lot of energy chasing him around the ring when I should have been trying to cut off the ring,'' Taylor said after the fight. ``And I should have thrown more body shots, but I didn't. I have to go back to the drawing board.''

Even if Taylor was the aggressor, that only counts if it is done so with any sort of effectiveness. When it's not, judges are supposed to credit the fighter - in this case, Hopkins - who is fighting brilliantly and not allowing the aggressor to be effective.

Hopkins landed 10 more punches than Taylor, but that doesn't mean much because this is prize fighting, not amateur boxing in which quantity means more than quality.

Not only did Hopkins land more punches, he easily landed the best punches of the fight, which is what counts most in the professional ranks. Hopkins hurt Taylor with a right hand in the seventh round, and did so again with two rights and a left in the 10th.

Taylor didn't go down, but he was so discombobulated in that round that he twice turned his back on Hopkins to avoid further punishment.

Hopkins never showed any signs of injury.

Perhaps Saturday was just a bad night for two judges. There's always the possibility that politics are involved, but the conspiracy theorists will be hard pressed to find evidence to support such claims.

Regardless, one thing seems evident: When virtually every veteran boxing writer on press row scores Hopkins the winner - many by at least four points - that boxer usually emerges as the winner. Usually, when a fight is close, there is a fairly equal split among reporters as to who won.

Not this time. What a shame.

HBO will replay the Hopkins-Taylor tragedy Saturday at 10:15 p.m. One word of advice for those planning on watching the replay: Don't pay any attention to anything analyst Larry Merchant or HBO scorekeeper Harold Lederman say.

There was a positive side to this mess. Many promoters would have stood up in the post-fight news conference and ranted and raved about how their fighter got ripped off. Oscar De La Hoya, who promotes Hopkins under his Golden Boy Promotions banner, showed class in the face of judging ineptness.

At one point, he even referred to Taylor as ``a class act.''

Yes, Taylor is that. It's not his fault two of Saturday's judges were blinded by who knows what.

Let's hope there are at least two different judges for the rematch, which could be Oct. 1.

--Not-so Golden Boy: Last week was a tough one for De La Hoya's company. On Thursday in Las Vegas, Golden Boy's Kassim Ouma lost his 154-pound International Boxing Federation championship to Roman Karmazin via unanimous decision. De La Hoya recently signed Ouma and forked out a $400,000 signing bonus.

Then, there was the ``loss'' by Hopkins.

--Oscar's announcements: All was not negative, however, as De La Hoya made several announcements Saturday before the fight.

One of them was Marco Antonio Barrera, who fights for Golden Boy, becoming a partner in the company. He is now president of Golden Boy Promotions Mexico. Barrera joins Hopkins as a De La Hoya partner, as Hopkins last November was made president of Golden Boy Promotions East.

Also, former welterweight champion ``Sugar'' Shane Mosley was made president of fighter relations for Golden Boy, and was signed to a fighter contract by De La Hoya as well.

Finally, De La Hoya formally announced the fight between Barrera (60-4, 42 KOs) and Robbie Peden, which will take place Sept. 17 at MGM Grand. Barrera's World Boxing Council and Peden's IBF super featherweight belts will be on the line.

Mosley (40-4, 35 KOs), of Pomona, will fight Jose Luis Cruz (30-0-2, 27 KOs) of Santa Ana via Mexico in the welterweight semi-main event of this pay-per-view card.

Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy, said Saturday that another title fight for the card should be announced this week. He said Jesus ``El Matador'' Chavez would challenge newly crowned IBF lightweight champion Leavander Johnson for his belt. Schaefer said the deal is nearly done.

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