Boxing: Hopkins, De La Hoya must put boxing back on the world stage

LAS VEGAS - (KRT) - The fight has been tagged the "Quest For History," but the task for Bernard Hopkins on Saturday night is really the opposite, really much bigger than that.

Boxing needs a jump-start from Bernard Hopkins. Boxing needs him and Oscar De La Hoya to give it a present and a future. Boxing needs this to be the genesis of something, a rebirth of the 1980s even, when big fights in the lighter divisions were commonplace and recognizable heavyweights were not.

He and De La Hoya must not just box each other Saturday night. They must stage an event, a reference point to click the sport out of neutral. It must be epic, memorable, controversial. All of the above would be great. Clearly the hype for this fight never matched the hype for Hagler-Leonard. But for boxing to shake off the rust, the aftermath must.