By Keith Idec

Bernard Hopkins was in his usual pre-fight form Wednesday.

The legend from Philadelphia demonstratively degraded Joe Smith Jr., his opponent Saturday night, during the final press conference for their HBO “World Championship Boxing” main event at The Forum in Inglewood, California.

Hopkins repeatedly referred to Smith, a union laborer from Long Island, as a “common man” who’s up against someone “special.” Smith remained calm throughout Hopkins’ soliloquy and simply told Hopkins, “We’ll see,” as Hopkins spoke to the young light heavyweight while standing at the podium.

“Remember, he gave y’all a prediction,” Hopkins said. “See, I’m not gonna predict that I’m gonna end his career – mentally, emotionally, physically. You know, I’m not gonna wish the Kelly Pavlik on him. But what I’m gonna do is, I’m gonna spank him, teach him his A-B-Cs, and then send him up the road from Philadelphia, to Long Island. And then one day, if he recovers mentally – mentally – then he might have something to salvage and go forward. See, that’s what I’m about. I’m a career-stopper to most of my opponents that talk like him.”

Before he knocked out Poland’s Andrzej Fonfara (28-4, 16 KOs) in the first round June 18 in Chicago, Smith hadn’t won a fight against a legitimate light heavyweight contender. The 27-year-old Smith (22-1, 18 KOs) still is nearly a 2-1 underdog entering the 51-year-old Hopkins’ farewell fight, the supposed end of a 28-year professional career that began in October 1988, slightly less than a year before Smith was born.

“You won’t be special come Saturday,” Hopkins told Smith. “You will stay common. … Like I said, I wish him a career [after Saturday night]. I wouldn’t wish nothing on nobody I wouldn’t wish on myself, because I’ve grown to understand the importance of that. What goes around comes around. You ever hear of that?”

The Hopkins-Smith match, Hopkins’ first fight since Sergey Kovalev dominated him in November 2014, will headline HBO’s tripleheader scheduled to start at 10 p.m. ET/PT on Saturday.

The telecast also will include a 12-rounder between WBO world cruiserweight champ Oleksandr Usyk (10-0, 9 KOs), of Kiev, Ukraine, and South Africa’s Thabiso Mchunu (17-2, 11 KOs) and a 10-rounder that’ll pit featherweight contender Joseph Diaz Jr. (22-0, 13 KOs), of Downey, California, against Mexico’s Horacio Garcia (30-1-1, 22 KOs).

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.