Here's One Vote For Another Bernard 'Alien' Hopkins Sighting

By Lyle Fitzsimmons

Call it the Peyton Manning effect.

After spending my Sunday watching a 39-year-old secure as unlikely a football championship as I can recall in recent memory, I’m left a day later pondering the slow fades of other elder sports statesmen.

Joe Namath as a Ram. Willie Mays as a Met. Michael Jordan as a Wizard. Wayne Gretzky as a Ranger.

In nearly every case, it doesn’t go as planned. In other words, nostalgia gets kicked in the teeth.

When it comes to boxing, the stakes are dangerously higher.

Upon entering a ring with a younger, stronger and faster foe, the penalties for old guys staying around too long go far beyond humiliation, jeers and dents to the legacy.

As the late, great Ralph Wiley correctly observed: “You can die in there.”

And even if you don’t, the marks left by young on old can still feel a lot like geronticide.

I’m certainly aware of all that.

And in no way am I endorsing the likes of Frank Bruno getting within 50 yards of the likes of Luis Ortiz.

But even after cringing through highlights of Holmes-Ali, Marciano-Louis and Camacho-Leonard, one thing remains crystal clear against my better middle-aged judgement.

I don’t want Bernard Hopkins to retire.

Oh sure, I’m well aware of what happened to him the last time he fought for a paycheck.

How he walked into a New Jersey room in which he’d pulled of some of the unlikeliest rabbits out of his hat by turning guys named Pavlik and Tarver into harmless stage props – and quickly found himself on the deck within three minutes and fencing to survive for the final 33.

The folks who can’t wrap their minds around the idea that a guy can still be world-class at anything past a certain age are out in full force once again, as the possibility of a Hopkins return once again makes the rounds – courtesy of a rampaging middleweight just itching to step in with a high-profile foe.

I hear those folks. And I understand them.

But I simply don’t agree.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not at all suggesting that the middle-aged Philadelphian won his most recent fight – 15 months ago – against 175-pound beast Sergey Kovalev.

I’m not suggesting that he won a round of the fight. In fact, I’m hardly suggesting he won more than a fleeting exchange or two for the duration.

Plain and simple, he got his ass whipped.

But regardless of what it says on his birth certificate, it didn’t happen because he was old.

It happened because Kovalev is good.

Lest anyone forget, the Russian “Krusher” had been doing similar numbers on a cross-section of light heavyweights before he ran across Hopkins. And he’s barely missed a beat in three fights since.

He dumped ex-champ Gabriel Campillo three times in a third-round TKO. He dropped unbeaten Nathan Cleverly twice on the way to swiping the WBO belt the Welshman had held for two years. He rendered Ismayl Sillakh horizontal moments into round two, after what had seemed like a competitive first session. And he leveled Blake Caparello in similar fashion, while barely breaking a sweat along the way.

Campillo was 34. Cleverly was 26. Sillakh was 28. Caparello was 27.

Not to mention 33-year-old Jean Pascal, another former champ who’s been concussed twice.

All were veteran 175-pounders. None had the stuff of a guy who turned 51 three weeks ago.

So while his quest to unify the light heavyweight division’s belts is definitively finished, the notion that he can still hold his own against the elites doesn’t necessarily need to be.

Perhaps the most telling passage from the post-Kovalev press conference came when Hopkins suggested that he “felt like a middleweight” while swapping shots with a talented big man whom many expect will be moving up to engage cruiserweights before he’s through.

Given that Kovalev unofficially swelled to 188 pounds following the weigh-in, it’s no wonder.

But if you took the skill set Hopkins still possesses and placed it alongside a fighter whose most recent rehydration was, say, 15 pounds lighter, you might find reason to view the tricky quinquagenarian as something less dubious than the 2-to-1 shot he was labeled heading into November 2014.

Presuming he can still reach 168, it’s not a preposterous reach to expect another miracle.

“People will always ask, in the back of their minds, ‘Can Bernard do it?' Because I've been right more than I've been wrong,” Hopkins said. “This ain't no easy fight. But I always see something. There's no perfect fighter. Everybody has a weak spot. Everybody has a vulnerability that needs to be exposed, it just takes the right person to be able to expose it. It's not just styles. Every fighter has a weakness.

“Exposing that weakness and executing to get victory from that weakness, that's the million-dollar or the billion-dollar question. Can he, whoever it is, crack that code?”

On this Tuesday morning, I’m certainly hoping for another chance to find out.

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This week’s title-fight schedule:

FRIDAY
WBO bantamweight title – Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand
Pungluang Sor Singyu (champion/No. 5 IWBR) vs. Jetro Pabustan (No. 4 WBO/unranked IWBR)
Sor Singyu (51-3, 35 KO): First title defense; Second reign as WBO champion (2012-13, zero defenses)
Pabustan (26-2-6, 7 KO): First title fight; First fight outside the Philippines
Fitzbitz says: You want to argue the Thai fighter isn’t the best in the division? Fine. But on home turf against a guy who’s had no taste of elite competition, it shouldn’t matter. Sor Singyu in 8

Last week’s picks: None
2016 picks record: 2-2
Overall picks record: 734-251 (74.5 percent)

NOTE: Fights previewed are only those involving a sanctioning body's full-fledged title-holder – no interim, diamond, silver, etc. Fights for WBA "world championships" are only included if no "super champion" exists in the weight class.

Lyle Fitzsimmons has covered professional boxing since 1995 and written a weekly column for Boxing Scene since 2008. He is a full voting member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Reach him at fitzbitz@msn.com or follow him on Twitter – @fitzbitz.