New Direction: Is This a Kinder, Gentler, Bernard Hopkins?
By Mitch Abramson
What happens when an “Executioner” acts more like a presidential candidate?
He risks slipping in the polls.
But there was Bernard Hopkins referencing his stint in prison in a conference call on Wednesday, getting all biographical on us, describing how he pulled himself out of the gutter, against all odds.
“Luck didn’t get me out of the penitentiary,” Hopkins said. “Luck didn’t get me out of the ghetto and turn my life around.”
And as he droned on, an image of the Republican presidential nominee John McCain popped into my head.
McCain (or his advisors) frequently mentions his time as a prisoner of war on the campaign trail.
Everyone knows the story, but still McCain’s people forever reference it, so much that it’s become a political tool, a crutch his campaign seems to use to bolster his standing among voters.
Similarly, Hopkins seems to invoke his prison days and subsequent turnaround to substantiate his prowess as a fighter. It’s a great story, but he tells it as if the public has never heard it.
“This goes way beyond boxing,” Hopkins went on. “When I made my decision that I wasn’t going back to the penitentiary, I had no money. I had no fame. I had no star power. How could I pull that off?”
He seemed to be saying that no one gave him a chance to turn his life around when he left prison, just as few people give him a chance to beat Kelly Pavlik when they meet Saturday in Atlantic City.
Against all odds, Bernard Hopkins will forever persevere
And that’s when it dawned on me: Hopkins, like McCain, needs a new message.
Because if this is the type of stuff that Hopkins is spouting before he faces Pavlik (34-0, 30 knockouts) on Saturday, then Hopkins really is in deep trouble.
Because for Hopkins to be successful, he has to gain a mental edge over his opponent, just as he did against Felix Trinidad, Antonio Tarver, and practically every fighter he has faced, and he just hasn't done that against Pavlik.
It was surprising when earlier at a presser in New York Hopkins more or less clarified his position on Pavlik:
"I have nothing bad to say about Kelly Pavlik. I have no gimmicks," Hopkins said. "I have no apples to give him. He's not an elementary school student. He's a champion already."
Shocking stuff: the fighter who probably uses his mind and mouth more than any other fighter to intimidate his opponent was basically calling off the dogs.
There was no vitriol in Hopkins comments during the conference call for the fight, which will be waged at 170 pounds.
There was no attempt to engage in psychological warfare with Pavlik, no attempt to infuse the fight with racial name-calling or to belittle his trainer Jack Loew as Emanuel Steward had delighted in when Pavlik faced Jermain Taylor.
Instead, Hopkins expressed his deep admiration for Pavlik as if he was discussing a future star in the Golden Boy galaxy.
“I respect Kelly Pavlik,” Hopkins said. “Kelly Pavlik can walk in North Philadelphia, West Philadelphia and South Philadelphia. He might get in a fight or two, but after he fights you, you can respect him because that’s the kind of mentality he brings to the table.”
If Bernard Hopkins really does “approve this message,” as he said throughout the conference call, humorously mocking the voiceovers that accompany political ads, then his campaign really is lost.
Because if Hopkins expects to match Pavlik’s brute force with his own brand of 43-year-old athleticism, it could be a painful night for the Executioner, who sounded like he is already thinking of retirement.
“The last five years has been a blessing for my family,” Hopkins said. “I’ve done well in the ring, and I’ve done well in financing, dealing with Richard Schaefer who comes from the banking industry, I’ve made some great investments.”
It was a kindler, gentler, apparently mellower Bernard Hopkins.
Hopkins was asked what motivates him at his advanced age.
“I’m still here. I’m still around,” he said. “If you can do it, and you can do in respect to your legacy and yourself, then why not?”
If I was a senior advisor at Golden Boy Promotions, I would politely instruct Hopkins to sit down, turn down the lights, and watch video of his press conferences with Trinidad before their 2001 fight.
During promotional tours for that fight, Hopkins successfully burrowed deep under Trinidad’s skin by throwing the Puerto Rican flag to the floor, belittling his prowess as a fighter and predicting that Tito’s father would have to save his son from punishment in their fight.
It was explosive stuff, and incredibly the fight unfolded essentially how Hopkins thought it would. Trinidad was so incensed from all the pre-fight rhetoric that he came out of his corner focused on revenge. Hopkins countered his shots beautifully until Tito’s father had to rescue his son in the 12th round.
It was a stunning conclusion to what had been a masterful psych job by Hopkins.
It was obvious that Hopkins (48-5-1, 32 knockouts) had gotten inside his head, just as he had attempted to rile up Joe Calzaghe by injecting race into their fight by boasting that he would never lose to a “white boy.”
Although Hopkins is nicknamed the “Executioner,” it’s become apparent that no one gets executed when he fights anymore.
He might try, “The Protector,” for his emphasis on defense, as a more apt nickname now.
No, the execution at this stage in his career usually starts before the fight when Hopkins carries out a pre-fight massacre of his opponents.
Is he crass? Offensive?
Is he a genius at mentally hammering his opponents?
He’s like the Karl Rove of boxing operatives.
But things have changed. The best we got from Hopkins in the area of trash-talk was an attempt to describe how Pavlik’s greatest strength could also be his weaknesses.
“And that’s why I know this is going to be a long, punishing fight for him because he’s not going to quit, he’s not going to run, he’s not going to start being a boxer all of a sudden, and that’s where he falls into the hands of the Executioner,” Hopkins said. “I got to keep showing them, and Kelly Pavlik is the perfect opponent for me because he comes forward, he wants to fight, and he wants to knock Bernard Hopkins out. Tito tried to walk me down, Tito had one bullet in his chamber and that was the left-hook. If Kelly thinks that he’s going to beat Bernard Hopkins because he has a right hand- he’s a damn fool.”
“Can Bernard Hopkins derail the Mack truck? I can flatten the tires, it will slow up, and then it will conk out.”
The biggest drama in the fight probably centers around whether Pavlik will be able to knock out the defensive-minded Hopkins, who is rarely if ever hurt in his fights.
In his career, Hopkins has only been down twice and that was against Segundo Mercado, a tall, rangy middleweight from New York, in 1994 in a bout that ended in a draw. The two met again in a rematch five months later, and Hopkins stopped Mercado in the seventh round to claim the vacant I.B.F. middleweight title.
“The question is what happens when he does get hit flush,” Pavlik said during the first-half of the conference call.
Sounding at ease and entirely comfortable with the prospect of facing Hopkins, Pavlik didn’t seem worried about Hopkins’ potential for roughhousing.
“He is going to get a hold of me, but if you watch the Calzaghe fight, Calzaghe fought the same game as Hopkins, and Hopkins was always turning to the referee and pointing and telling him that Joe was being dirtier on the inside, and it kind of took Hopkins away for the second half of the fight,” Pavlik said. “That right there was a big thing to watch.”
Loew was a little more blunt in his assessment.
“Don’t be surprised if we put Bernard’s nuts in his throat before he touches us low,” Loew said. “If he fouls, we can fight rough, too. We’re not concerned about his roughhouse tactics. We’re going to make him fight at a really high rate and throw a lot of punches.”
Now that’s how you talk before a fight. Bernard, are you listening?
Mitch Abramson covers boxing for the New York Daily News, and BoxingScene.com.