Hopkins Pondered Move To Heavyweight To Face Haye

By Bill "Two Scoops" Emes

WBA/IBF light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins (55-6-2, 32KOs) is a fighter who is motivated by making history and taking big risks. Next month, Hopkins takes another dangerous fight when he faces undefeated WBO champion Sergey Kovalev (25-0-1, 23KOs) in a high profile unification at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

Many are surprised with Hopkins decision, at 49-years-old, to face such a dangerous puncher like Kovalev. The only person not surprised is Hopkins, who says he was very serious - several years ago - about moving up in weight to challenge the much bigger David Haye, when the British boxer held the WBA's version of the heavyweight crown.

"It's meaningless for me to fight a guy, and have a motivation [to do it], if I don't believe there's a threat there.  There is a threat there. In the last fifteen years, I took on the best fighters in every era, in every weight class. I pondered at one time about going up to heavyweight and fighting David Haye. I even talked about fighting James Toney at cruiserweight. It made the Ring Magazine cover but we couldn't get the deal done," Hopkins said.

"I want the best. Hagler fought the best. Ray Leonard fought the best. The Alis of the world fought the best and I'm from an era where I fought the best. It's important to me to do, or try to do, what others couldn't do, or out of reach to even think about doing.....[like going on] to achieve undisputed status, twice...in 2001 [at middleweight] and now."