To say Bernard Hopkins has the gift of gab would be like saying the Yankees have baseball’s richest tradition. Both go without saying. Hopkins was at his entertaining best last Thursday at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, where Roach is training Hopkins for his 170-pound fight against Winky Wright on July 21 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. HBO pay-per-view will televise for $49.95.
After several rounds of crunching the hand mitts held by the hard-working Roach, Hopkins began to shadow box in the middle of the ring. Moving with the grace most fighters only dream of, the 42-year-old living legend began to field questions from reporters draped along the ropes.
Hopkins is promoted by Golden Boy Promotions. Its CEO, Richard Schaefer, had just told yours truly that Hopkins’ goal is to knock out Wright. Schaefer admitted that is not going to be easy, considering Wright might be second only to Floyd Mayweather Jr. as far as defensive greatness. So we asked Hopkins how he was going to go about knocking out Wright (51-3-1, 25 KOs), who has never been stopped in 55 fights.
“Well, you gotta hit him to knock him out, right?” Hopkins said, as he glared at this reporter, like only he can glare. “You want to know my plan? You know I’m smarter than that.”
Hopkins was just getting started. He then walked over toward the ropes to make sure we all knew exactly where he was coming from.
“Listen, in any history of battle, you’re a fool if you give up your plan before you do it,” Hopkins said. “When I sit down and play chess – which I’m very good at; I’m not saying I’m the best, but I could probably beat 80 percent of the people in here – it’s a thinking game. I may want to sacrifice my bishop to set you up for what I want to do. And you think I’m giving you something. I’m not giving you nothing.
“I might drop my left hand for Winky to throw that jab because I want to come over there and do a lot of other things that you all haven’t seen nobody do to Winky. His style fits like a perfect shoe. I wear a 12.”
Then Hopkins got even closer, just to make sure he got his point across. “You’ve been watching me for so many years,” he said. “I dissect guys. I figure out puzzles within seconds. You’ve seen me figure out these things. You’ve seen me pick a guy apart, destroy him. So Winky is no different.”
Having stopped working for a minute while he tried to get through to us, it was time for Hopkins to get the blood flowing again in those middle-aged veins.
“When you’re 42, you can’t talk too much,” Hopkins said. “You gotta keep working When I stop, I freeze. I gotta keep moving.”
That prompted another reporter to ask Hopkins what, at 42, doesn’t work as well on his body. His answer shocked the house, and brought roars of laughter.
“My penis,” Hopkins said. “But they got doctors for that. I got a great doctor.
Seriously, it doesn’t work like it used to.” Uh, OK. Let’s just put that in the “too much information” file.
Anyway, Hopkins was also asked why he continues to fight even though he had promised the world he was going to retire and stay retired after he moved up to light heavyweight last June and won a unanimous decision over Antonio Tarver in dominating fashion in Atlantic City.
Hopkins gave no answer. Just ignored the question. But Roach, during a telephone interview Tuesday, offered his opinion on the matter.
“Boxing is a very addicting sport,” Roach said. “It is very hard to quit. His last fight was a very good performance, so he is still on top of the game, even at 42. He has discipline, just in life in general. He never lets himself go. He stays within striking distance, where he can still compete at that level.”
Hopkins, perhaps one of the best middleweights in history, also remains a formidable foe because he has never been truly battered in a fight. He is 47-4-1 with 32 knockouts. Two of his losses were via decision to Jermain Taylor, and he did more damage to Taylor than Taylor did to him.
Hopkins also lost a decision to Roy Jones Jr. way back in May 1993, but he certainly was not knocked silly in that one. Hopkins was floored twice during a draw with Segundo Mercado in a December 1994 battle for one of the vacant middleweight belts. Proving his mettle, Hopkins stopped Mercado in the seventh round five months later to win that title.
“He is not an old 42,” Roach said. “Forty-two, in numbers, that might sound old. But how many wars has he really been in? And how many beatings has he taken? Not any, that I know of. He is actually a fresh 42. In boxing, age comes with how many wars you’ve had and how many tough fights you’ve had.”