By Steve Kim

Bernard Hopkins turned 51-years-old today. And even at that ripe old age he still has designs on boxing once more before finally walking off into the sunset.

Even on this day, with no fight scheduled, he did his daily routine at the gym.

"I did my exercises and letting my body react the way it can react and hopefully, not like a 61-year-old but I feel great, I feel good. It's good to see another year and I'm looking forward to this being one of my historic years in a lot of ways to add into that big list of historic things that I've done. But it's time to sit back and reflect and I come off the new year and then the first month of the year, I celebrate another milestone or page turn in my life," said Hopkins, who at one time spent time in prison for youthful indiscretions.

Instead of becoming a statistic, he has etched his name in boxing's history - with still a bit more left to be written.

"That's how I look at it...one year passes, one year comes to fruition, a new chapter for me to write and here I am. Who would ever think that? They knew Bernard Hopkins then as 'Heads', that's what they called me on the street...I would be sitting here talking on the phone with you.....it's crazy. To me, it's motivating to be honest with you. It's an inspiration for me to talk like this,"said Hopkins in reflecting on his life's journey.

Hopkins believes he is just at the halftime of his life.

"We're in the middle of the countdown and I don't talk or think negative but I look at 50, 51, whether you take care of yourself or don't take care of yourself , I'm [in the] middle of time in front of me and I'm in the middle of time in back of me," said Hopkins, who's goal must be to live to be a hundred years old.

"When people in their 80's, 90's... they say,'Well, I got more time, well, I have more time in the back of me then I have in front of me.' I got the best of both worlds now and hopefully one day more time will be in back of me. But right now I'm in the middle. I'm in the middle of people thinking I should retire. Then if you hear the comments they think I should do one more. I'm actually in the middle of a lost of things that are positive and that's great."

The sure-fire future Hall of Famer (who has a career mark of 55-7-2, 32 KO's) says this will be his last year as an active prizefighter. His last outing took place in November of 2014, where he lost a twelve round decision to Sergey Kovalev.

"Yes, absolutely, yes. It's the second time I've said that in a ten year plus span and the fans didn't get cheated out of what I've done in those years starting with Jean Pascal, those two fights, all the way up to those other names. Yes, this is it, the final chapter," Hopkins said.

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.