On Sunday afternoon, Pat Russell was heading up to Santa Barbara to celebrate his 21st anniversary with his wife. The night before, he was the third man in the ring in what was just the latest HBO Pay-Per-View snafu, as Chad Dawson won the WBC light heavyweight title by stopping Bernard Hopkins in rather dubious fashion. The 46-year old Hopkins was essentially lifted off his feet by Dawson near the end of the second round and in the subsequent fall, he suffered a separated right shoulder.
Just when you thought you had seen it all…
?That was a roughhouse fight, two tough guys, very experienced. They know exactly what they were doing. They were trying to gain angles at all times so they could throw shots,? recalled Russell, while on the road. ?And that happened in the first round. The second round, just previous to this particular incident happening, if you notice – and again, I have not seen any replays or whatever else, so I?m just telling you what my recollection is and being in the middle at the time- Dawson got pushed down because Bernard came in, I think, to throw a body shot and Dawson got pushed down and he had a slip, very quickly, that was just prior to when this fight ended. I dusted off his gloves. I tried to prevent that stuff from happening.?
