Gustavo was guessing

By Mac Arnold
Black Eye Editor

Speaking of black eyes or just plain no eyes, the Filipino judge who scored the Bernard "The Alien" Hopkins vs. Beibut Shumenov Light Heavyweight unification title bout 114-113 for Shumenov was out of his mind on Saturday night, April 19.

With the split decision victory, Hopkins (55-6-2, 32 KOs) claimed the WBA and IBF portions of the championship and at 49 years old became the oldest fighter to ever claim two belts at the same time in a division.

"How did you do it?" asked Showtime reporter Jim Gray.

"Because I'm special ... there's no definition of special," the pride of Philadelphia told him, "it just is."

He even put an exclamation mark on it with a 11th-round knockdown from a crunching overhand right.

The Alien one now has put himself in position to be the oldest ever to unify the championship -- in what is his goal is to do it by the time he is 50. For the next part of the conquest, he must dislodge Adonis Stevenson's WBC portion of the Light Heavyweight division crown. But before that happens, Stevenson must beat Andrzej Fonfara on May 24, when he attempts to defend the title.

Of course, then there's the hard-hitting Sergey Kovalev's portion of the 175-pound title in the WBO, but that seems like an improbability with the infighting among the various factions.

I've looked past BHop quite a few times over the years or second-guessed him but he got hit frequently against Shumenov (14-2, 9 KOs), a former Olympian from Kazakhstan. And whereas Shumenov has a pretty good punch, it would be nothing like how "Superman" devastates opponents.

Stevenson left former WBC belt holder Chad Dawson out cold and twitching on the canvas, and Dawson previously beat Hopkins.

I will say that BHop is a sly defensive fighter, but I don't see him staying away from Stevenson.

Then again, Gustavo Padilla didn't see Hopkins beating Shumenov.