Bernard Hopkins had nearly 70 professional fights during his memorable boxing career.
After losing his professional debut back in 1988, Hopkins went on to have plenty of success inside the ring, competing for nearly 30 years up until he was 51.
He holds the record as the oldest world champion in boxing history when he still held light heavyweight honours at the age of 49, and was only stopped once in his entire professional career.
That came at the hands of Joe Smith Jr in December 2016 when Hopkins had his final fight, having also not competed for over two years prior to that. The boxing great was knocked out of the ring by a punch, and unable to return by the end of the count, handing Smith Jr the win.
While Smith Jr may be the only man that was able to stop Hopkins, ‘The Executioner’ had a different name in mind when revealing who hit him the hardest in his career, revealing to The Ring who had that accolade.
“Antwun Echols: He was clubbing, not swift. Thumping. Also, Felix Trinidad, but that’s all. He was really one dimensional. He had great success fighting one-dimensional people.
“That’s not a knock on him but when you run into a Bernard Hopkins, who’s more than one dimensional, then you got a problem. Kovalev was a big puncher but I’m going to stick with Antwun Echols, he could crack.”
Hopkins first met Echols back in December 1999, defending his IBF middleweight title in the bout. Hopkins won by unanimous decision, before the pair had a rematch 12 months later, with ‘The Executioner’ winning by 10th round TKO on that occasion to once again retain his belt.
Echols won 32 fights in his career, 28 of them by knockout. After his two unsuccessful title bids against Hopkins, his latter career resembled that of a journeyman, winning just one of his final 21 fights. He sadly passed away in 2023 at the age of 52 following a battle with diabetes.
