by Thomas Gerbasi

Over ten years as middleweight champion. 20 title defenses. A resume over 40 that is better than most compiled by fighters ten years his junior. And that’s not counting the fame and the money that Bernard Hopkins now calls his own.

Add in that he achieved all these things while fighting a system designed to keep him quiet and under control, and it makes the accomplishments even more impressive.

So you would expect that it’s about time for Hopkins, at 45 years old, to stop, look around, and take a whiff of the proverbial roses. Then again, that wouldn’t be his style.

“I do reflect, but I don’t reflect long because when I’m running, if I look back that slows me up and they can get me,” he told BoxingScene.com.

“They” can take many forms for ‘The Executioner’. It could be the younger, stronger, faster, but not wiser, opponents lining up to take a shot at the 40-something warrior. It could be an industry that still may be smarting over the statements and stands he has made over the years, or it could be something we don’t even know about. But what we do know is that the idea of “They” coming to get him keeps him sharp and it’s what he thinks about when he does look back at his 22 years in the boxing game.

“You know what I reflect on?” he asks. “Fighting Clinton Mitchell in May of 1988 and losing a four round decision. 22 years later, as of right now, I have my faculties and some of my memory, and to still be in the mentality of even though I’m financially set and my family is set, I haven’t made that become my God to the point where I forgot. I will be that same guy out there, hollering and screaming about something I believe is wrong.”

It’s almost hard to believe, that after earning multi-million dollar paydays, taking an ownership stake in Golden Boy Promotions, and getting a level of respect from his peers and from fans that few could hope for, Hopkins still has the fire to fight back. Of course, then he opens his mouth and it’s clear that whatever is on his mind will soon be fired out into the world, making him not only boxing’s best soundbite, but a lightning rod for controversy. Not what you would expect from someone who is one of the sport’s power brokers.

“I have people that I respect and who are close to me in my camp, and they gotta be kinda careful about saying things to me because I know I’ll turn on them in a minute,” he said. “So it’s more like ‘Bernard, you’re in corporate America now, you’re with Golden Boy…’”

You can hear the answer coming…

“No, no, no, no,” he blurts. “Once I become one hundred percent corporate and I still consider myself a fighter, I’m dead in the water. I’m done. Not only as a sell-out, but on the athletic tip, it would take away 80 percent of my psyche, of what’s been motivating me for many, many years – to be against the establishment. So to become part of the establishment, I would not have that fire in my belly as I have right now.”

That fire has carried him to wins over Howard Eastman, Antonio Tarver, Winky Wright, Kelly Pavlik, and Enrique Ornelas – all taking place after he turned 40 years old. Three losses also dot his 40+ record, but each one – two against Jermain Taylor and one against Joe Calzaghe – were controversial verdicts which many people believed should have gone in Hopkins’ favor.

On April 3rd, he will climb the mountain once again to take on the man who beat him in his first world middleweight title fight in 1993, Roy Jones Jr. Back before his ninth round knockout of Oscar De La Hoya in 2004, 11 years after the first bout with Jones, I asked him about that defeat and he told me, “I made a vow to myself which I’ve held up for 11 years now, that I’ll never lose on my feet again.  I train that way, I think that way, and it’s been 11 years.  Some people don’t think that’s important.  I think it’s very important to make a statement and to work hard to live by it.”

Judging by that statement, you could say that Roy Jones – in a roundabout way – has contributed to Hopkins’ eventual success. But when reminded of the quote last week, Hopkins says that my interpretation of what he said then is way off.

“I believe a lot of that had to do with Bernard Hopkins’ history with the boxing powers and the mob – M-O-B – in the business that I deal with,” he explains. “And I say that with sincerity from my heart. It had nothing to do with any particular fighter, especially Roy Jones Jr. And when I use the word ‘mob’, I don’t mean the old days of the 50’s and 40’s. To me, it’s a group of people with power to be able to use what you don’t do in the ring – win, win, win – to bury you and to monopolize you and to not give you an opportunity to be able to show that fighters who became great came from adversity.”

“That statement, I remember it as clear as if I said it yesterday or an hour ago,” Hopkins continues, “because I understood all the way back to 1999, when I stood up at the senate hearings talking about boxing, talking about the corruption, talking about the double standards, about the conflicts of interest that run from the top to the bottom of boxing. And once I made that statement, I realized, pertaining to some of the phone calls I got, that it won’t be in my best interests if I go down there to New York City to speak in front of Eliot Spitzer, the ex-attorney general, and Senator McCain. I haven’t been robbed of that memory, and I thank God that I can reflect on that in 2010. That’s why I made that statement and a couple of other statements because I know, even to today, and believe it or not even more today, Bernard Hopkins must go into the ring knowing that my lifeline is always to go in there to win on my feet. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to always get the win politically, and not getting it politically proves me right all the time – the Jermain Taylor fight, the Joe Calzaghe fight. There always seems to be a mystery or a doubt – other than the Roy Jones fight in ’93 – of who won or who didn’t win. When you’ve got those intangibles wrapped up in it, it’s not considered a clear victory on their end. And so I’ve realized that it made me even more popular in some cases, and it’s made me more of a target in some cases. It really had nothing to do with Roy Jones.”

Point taken.

Yet while the losses to Taylor and Calzaghe were controversial, odds are that they were just part and parcel with life in the fight game. No one’s saying lightweight contender Ali Funeka was stiffed in his 2009 fight against Joan Guzman because it was political – it was just a bad decision.

Hopkins isn’t buying that rationale though, and believing what he does has made him who he is – not only as a fighter, but as a man. And if you’re looking for the magic formula as to why he’s become boxing’s version of Benjamin Button, seemingly getting younger with each passing year, it’s because he has never changed his mindset.

Most fighters, when they find success and get secure in life outside the ring, get softer as they get older. It’s the old Marvin Hagler line “it’s hard to get up and train when you’re sleeping on silk sheets.” Hopkins, judging by the way he talks, thinks, and performs, is sleeping on a bed of nails as he prepares for Jones in Miami. Would you call it paranoia? Hopkins would.

“There’s no magic rabbit’s foot that I have,” he said of his success after 40. “If it was something legal that I was drinking, if it was something that I was cooking, or watching, looking at or reading, I would actually sell that on EBay. I would reel in millions of dollars hopefully with a good agent behind it. It’s that mentality. Whenever somebody might want to say that Bernard is paranoid – I am. I’m a hundred percent paranoid. But even being paranoid, you must have – at least if you’re smart – control enough where you don't become overly paranoid. There is a difference. Paranoid is the definition of awareness. But when you become too much of anything, it’s called an overdose. You can have an overdose of sex if you’re Tiger Woods. You can have an overdose of an interview if you’re interviewing me.”

Never.

But there is more to come from this story…