Bernard Hopkins is many things

By Paul Upham: Bernard Hopkins, 39-2-1 (28) 1 NC, is the WBC and IBF middleweight world champion and only one win away from equalling Carlos Monzon’s record of 14 successful middleweight title defences.

Bernard Hopkins has been undefeated since May 23, 1993 and has been a middleweight champion for six years and four months.

Bernard Hopkins is one win away from becoming the undisputed middleweight champion and winning the Sugar Ray Robinson trophy.

Bernard Hopkins is many things.

He is one of the most interesting individuals in boxing and he speaks his mind, leaving everyone in no doubt where he stands on any issue. He speaks intelligently and passionately, giving you a different insight and perspective to the issues at hand. He makes you think, is entertaining and can make you laugh.

But most importantly of all, Bernard Hopkins is very convincing. Spend even a small amount of time listening to the man speak and you quickly realise that he possesses immense self-belief and determination.

The man known as the “Executioner” spoke on a conference call from his training camp, the Prince Ranch in Las Vegas on Wednesday for nearly two hours. Yet it was always interesting. You could hear the disappointment in Hopkins’ voice when he was told that there were no more questions in queue.

“Well, I’ve been eating donuts and a big bowl of ice cream and sitting back and enjoying all the attention,” said Hopkins, when asked how his training was going.

“Seriously, I’ve been up here going on five weeks, just training and studying every aspect of the game with myself and my trainer and the rest of the crew. The normal things a true champion does before a fight. I’m mentally and physically ready for war.”

He knows the importance of this fight with Trinidad. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this opportunity. In boxing when opportunities comes you have to capitalise on it,” he says, but likes to keep some things to himself.

“I’m not going to reveal the sparring partners because I don’t think it is necessary.”

He has no ego when it comes to training or maintaining a work ethic, which sees him on the top of his game at the age of 36. “I’m a strong believer in not having punching bags for sparring partners because they can’t produce anything I’m trying to work on, other than having an ego trip, which I don’t have when it comes to beating up them men, sparring for a particular fight.”

After going through so many hard times in a sport that is so cruel and demanding inside and outside the ring, Hopkins believes that his rewards are now at hand. “Any time I would have lost getting to this point, for what I have done in the court room and in also the ring would have buried me. This is nothing different. The stakes are higher but you got to understand, I done it the Frank Sinatra way, my way. If I’m not in the coffin September 15, I break the camel’s back with this fight,” he said.

“Yeah, that’s what I just said, I break the camel’s back.”

“What is the camel?”

“The business industry that kept their foot in my ass for so many years. But I guarantee you this, whoever wins and loses this fight, they are going to know they lost and they are going to know they won.”

How has he managed to get to this point where victory will bring such great rewards?

“By being a one army man coming through an industry that is so powerful, God like powerful and it can shut you down and I still continue to fight,” Hopkins answered.

When it comes to the outcome of his unification fight with WBA champion Felix Trinidad, Hopkins described it in detail, as if he could see it in a crystal ball.

“He won’t quit, the referee is going to have to save him. Papa Trinidad is going to have to save him. I will win on a TKO. I would prefer a KO, but I’m telling you that his heart is going lead him to the point where he is going to take so much pain and so much abuse and it is going to look so easy and one sided that people are going to be shocked and then there is going to come excuses. ‘You got in his head, the two fights with Vargas and David Reid finally caught up with him,” he said.

The man from Philadelphia has a very good memory when it comes to remembering what has been written about him. “I’m not going to let people off the hook with that. Lou DiBella Entertainment is not going to let people off the hook. Norman Horton is not going to let people off the hook with that. We are not going to let any excuses down play, not even a flag excuse. We are not going to let anybody down play Bernard Hopkins victory over Trinidad.”

Just because it is Trinidad in the ring with him, it doesn’t mean that Hopkins will be doing anything different, including the “Executioner’s” serving of the traditional last meal. “It would be uncivilised if I don’t? Why would I treat him any different? That is part of weakness again. All eyes are watching, what you did before compared to what you won’t do now.”

“Michael Jordan as great as he is or as great as he was, I don’t he think he practices on how to shoot a foul shot different now or how to slam a ball different now than he did when he was a six-time championship winner.

“Why should I change something that has been beneficial to me for the last 11-12 years? I’ve got 13 defences and been champion for almost seven years. Why do I have to walk different? Why do I have to talk different?

“A story is a story. When you write it, you write it. Some are bigger than others. But you don’t write it no different. You get a pen in your hand or you get a typewriter or you get a computer and you push the same keys that you push for a car accident on a highway compared to a nuclear bomb dropping in somebody’s country.”

When they finally stood nose to nose for the first time in New York for the first announcement of the fight, Hopkins says that Trinidad experienced something new.

“Just because you got up from everybody else, you are in with a bigger name man now. You are not fighting a small man. Felix Trinidad realised in New York City when we did our posing, standing together, looking at each other. He realised that he had to look up for the first time in his career,” he said.

“He realised that he is in there now with not only a bigger man, but a talented man. I’m too much man for Trinidad and we are going to expose that. I am going to expose that and my trainer is going to expose that.

“I’ve seen something that people didn’t see. I know what to look for. Yes, I seen fear in Trinidad’s eyes and I wasn’t shocked because he is human. People build people up to be Gods like they are not human. I seen something that Trinidad didn’t see in none of his fights. He seen that this particular guy wasn’t going to play second to him.

Hopkins motivation has always been victory, to maintain the position that he has worked so hard to achieve and work his way to the top of the mountain to the ultimate summit.

“I’m always thinking win because there has never been a second side. I have always been one fight away being a category grade A superstar, whatever it is people want to make up these titles to give you and always been one fight away from being retired.”

“That’s my motivation.

“This ain’t nothing new to me. Because I’m fighting Trinidad it’s something different? No, it’s not.

“If he runs and he is trying to tell people that he is going to box and do different things, I’m going to walk him down like a Bengal Tiger man and eat him up. Whatever he does, he doesn’t make any difference to me.

“I want him to come to me and try to knock me out. I hope he don’t run because if he run, that’s like seeing Joe Frazier trying to box like Muhammad Ali and then everybody will think that something funny is going on. I want him to fight me like he has been, with heart and guts and all that stuff that makes him a great champion.

“Then when he bites the dust, I’m going to have so many newspapers that I’m going to be looking into making sure that you all didn’t oversleep, that you all didn’t somehow pay your cable bill. I’m going to make sure that you print what you all seen,” said Hopkins, who warned the boxing writers.

“And I don’t won’t to hear the word upset.”

Has he bet money on himself to win?

“If it is legal, yes. If it is illegal, no,” he replied.

Boxing is fighting and it is a dirty sport says Hopkins.

“Every fighter that you fight is a dirty fight. I have never heard of a clean fight in my life. Every fight that you fight is a dirty fight man. There is no such thing as a clean fight. That is why it is called fighting. Fighting is not clean, look in the dictionary.

“I’m telling you that whatever he brings to the table, I’m ready to bring to the table. If he draws first blood, I’m going to draw second blood. Whatever he wants to do, I’m ready for it,” said Hopkins, who promises that he won’t be the one complaining to the referee.

Bernard Hopkins is many things and he is also a family man.

“I’m a family man and I have never had a baby out of wedlock. I have got one daughter and I have been married to my wife for eight years August 28. We have been together 12 years, married eight. I have got a lovely home in Delaware and I have a beautiful mother who I also put in a lovely home. I have four sisters and three brothers and I am a guy that will die for what I believe in and I mean that.”

But when it comes to boxing inside the ring and the boxing industry outside the ring, he is just as his moniker describes him, the “Executioner”.

“I’m ruthless, don’t have any respect for my opponent or anybody and I shouldn’t. My job is to seek and destroy and the name speaks for itself and that’s what I live by.”


Paul Upham
Contributing Editor