By Matteo Alderson

Bernard Hopkins is in for a fight on February 19.  He says that he’s been running at 4AM and that we are going to ask for his birth certificate because he is going to look like a 20 year old out there, but I don’t think so. No one can defy the ravages of father time.  

Anyway, who the hell runs at 4 AM, they should be asleep at that hour, but lately it seems like a fad, Clifford Ettiene says he’s also running at four in the morning to get ready for is bout with Calvin Brock.  On February 19 at the Staple Center we are going to see a shocking upset.  Hopkins is old and ready to be taken.  He recently got his first 8-figure payday and also has a piece of Golden Boy Promotions.  He’s set for life and a defense against Ring Magazine’s legitimate number one contender is not an easy order for any champ, much less a 40-year old one with millions in the bank and a lucrative promotional business. 

Remember Donald Curry and Shane Mosley.  Curry was considered at worst the second best fighter in the world and was eyeing potential super-fights with Leonard and Hagler when in 86, Loyd Honeyghan, a Brit like Eastman, came in hungry and dethroned the Lone Star Cobra.  Another upset of another pound for pound star occurred when Vernon Forrest beat Shane Mosley.  The tall Georgian could fight, but Mosley was knocking fools out with such ease that he seemed unbeatable.  Then after the fight everybody started to talk about how Vernon was under appreciated and how they knew all along that it was going to be a difficult fight for Shane since Forrest was so tall and lengthy.  These are the same utterances that the so-called boxing experts are going to be saying when Howard Eastman beats up Bernard Hopkins. 

I can hear it now, “I knew Eastman was tall and awkward and that he was going to give Hopkins a tough fight since the top fighters in the division had ducked him for so long.”  Really folks were you aware that Jermain Taylor’s people reportedly turned down a title eliminator against Eastman?  You know the Taylor camp won’t fight anybody that has a chance of winning so why do you think they chose not to tangle with Eastman.  It’s because the man can fight.  I know he lost a decision to William Joppy, but it was the first time that he fought outside of England and the fight still could have gone either way.

Let me warn you now, this fight is not one of those appearance fights and it’s not a big money super-fight, but it is a fight between the undisputed middleweight champion of the world and the legitimate number one contender.  When it’s all said and done, Marvin Hagler’s saying that it’s “tough to wake and go running at 5:00 in the morning when your in silk pajamas” is going to ring prophetic when Eastman wins a decision in a war that is a little too fast paced for the aging champion.  Howard Eastman by decision in the upset of year and you can quote me on that.