By Keith Idec
If Bernard Hopkins asked Sergey Kovalev for advice, the unbeaten Russian light heavyweight champion would urge the 49-year-old legend to retire.
“Looking at how old he is – 49, almost 50 – my counsel is he needs to stop with his career,” Kovalev said on a conference call Friday. “He’s already not a young man.”
Kovalev knows, of course, that the ever-stubborn Hopkins likely will listen to only one voice when deciding whether to fight again in the aftermath of the most lopsided loss of his 26-year career to Kovalev on Saturday night in Atlantic City. If Hopkins (55-7-2, 32 KOs, 2 NC) fights after the Philadelphia native turns 50 on Jan. 15, Kovalev thinks he can beat virtually every light heavyweight other than him, including WBC champion Adonis Stevenson (24-1, 20 KOs).
“He can decide if he can fight again or not,” said Kovalev (26-0-1, 23 KOs). “At the press conference, he said he didn’t lose to his age; he lost to Kovalev. He thinks he’s feeling great. He feels in good shape and he feels young in his body.
“I think he can get a lot of wins against a lot of good fighters, even including Stevenson and a lot of top-10 fighters. It’s not my job right now [to decide for Hopkins]. It’s his job, if he wants to fight or not. If he’s feeling very good, OK, let’s do it. But I say he should stop and give opportunities to younger fighters to fight on the top stage.”
Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
