Sequel was one tired act

LAS VEGAS -- If Bill Shakespeare had been writing about Saturday night's middleweight title fight between Jermain Taylor and Bernard Hopkins, it would have been much ado about nothing. It would have been a tempest in a teapot. All the threatening words from both sides leading up to it would have been seen to be nothing more than ''a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." In other words, it would have been a tragedy, which it was if you shelled out $44.95 to watch a two-step disguised as a fight.

Taylor could have been cast as Hamlet as he walked around the stage at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, for he seemed like a southern fried version of the Daunted Dane, a young man from Arkansas unsure of what to do or when to do it.

Hopkins, on the other hand, appeared much like the aged King Lear, an old lion unable to pull the trigger anymore when he needed to most and, hence, doomed to ultimate ruin.

For 12 rounds, Taylor and Hopkins circled each other like two not-so-hungry sharks. Occasionally, they attacked, but never ravenously, their appetite for combat apparently sated five months ago when they first met. Mostly they waited, two boxers so respectful of each other they seemed obsessed with making sure a fight never broke out. They got their wish. It was like watching a John Ruiz fight -- but with less action.

Taylor spent far more time holding than punching and Hopkins made the same tactical error he did in their first confrontation, giving away half the fight with his inaction before coming on to make it close but not close enough. Judges Dave Moretti, Chuck Giampa, and Patricia Morse Jarman all scored the bout identically, seeing Taylor a 115-113 winner, thus allowing Taylor (25-0) to retain the undisputed middleweight title he first won from Hopkins July 16. The Globe card had the fight a 114-114 draw.

Moretti scored the first six rounds all for Taylor while Giampa and Jarman gave Hopkins only one of the first six, although they could not agree on which round Hopkins won, only further making the case that probably no one deserved it. That scoring made the 11th round the most critical because all three judges saw Hopkins (46-4-1) as dominant in the second half, in large part because he finally began to press Taylor while the champion was content to clinch and only occasionally put himself at risk. But all three, as well as the Globe, agreed Taylor won the 11th round. Had he not, the fight would have been declared a draw, and although Taylor would have retained the World Boxing Council, World Boxing Association, and World Boxing Organization titles, he would have kept them in as controversial a manner as he first won them in July, when he was awarded a disputed split decision.

The International Boxing Federation belt, which, ironically, was the one Hopkins held the longest, was not in play because IBF president Marion Muhammad stripped Taylor of it for refusing to fight some nondescript opponent rather than face Hopkins in an immediate rematch.

Despite having won all those belts from Hopkins five months earlier, Taylor did not fight like a young man convinced of his superiority. Instead, he fought like someone who had learned to be wary of an old cobra like Hopkins, who did so much damage to Taylor when the two last found themselves at close quarters. Taylor even alluded to the problem as he was trying to explain what transpired.

''The difference in this fight was he respected me more," Taylor (25-0) said. ''He's a very clever fighter. He's very difficult to hit. But I'm taking the belts back to Arkansas. I was determined to win."

If he was, Taylor did a good job of hiding it. He seldom used the rapier left jab he'd used so often to keep Hopkins confused and off balance in their first fight. The absence of that jab slowed Taylor's attack considerably, making him look like a most reluctant participant, but it did prevent him from getting countered by Hopkins's hard rights.

As for Hopkins, he insisted he'd done enough to win despite throwing only 371 punches and not pressuring Taylor until the final four rounds. It was the same pattern as before and led to a similar result. Another close defeat.

''I thought I was very aggressive this fight," Hopkins incredibly claimed after the snooze-fest. ''I definitely thought I did enough to win the fight. I felt I was working more in the early rounds. I stayed in his face."

Self-delusion in boxing is, at times, necessary to survive but it seldom does any good once you are at work. Clearly that is what happened to Hopkins -- if he truly thinks he was more aggressive than in the first fight, he should check the tapes.

Statistically, Hopkins landed a few more punches (130-124) than Taylor, but he was never fully able to catch the young champion in a mistake. The few times he did, he made Taylor pay for it but because the champion did not tire in the later rounds, as he did in their first fight, there were fewer opportunities of that type and Hopkins made few of his own.

''I felt I was working more in the early rounds," Hopkins (46-4-1) said. ''Every time he got tired in an exchange, he was holding and biding his time."

After the decision was announced, Taylor's management team said the champion would return to Little Rock for his next fight, a homecoming affair that would not include an invitation for Hopkins to attend.

''I believe I beat him," Hopkins said. ''Look at his face and look at my face. His face doesn't look much better than it did after the first fight. But I'm not sure what I'll do now. I'm not looking to be around much longer."

That's how he fought Saturday night. Like an old fighter who wasn't looking to be around much in case a fight broke out. Why young Jermain Taylor felt the same is another matter entirely, but former junior middleweight champion Winky Wright, who is standing in the wings ready to challenge him, is surely anxious to explore that after what he saw Saturday night.