by David P. Greisman

Light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson took issue with Bernard Hopkins’ claims that he manipulated Stevenson at an event in Los Angeles — part of a pattern of mind games that Hopkins says he’s used on fighters, including his upcoming foe Beibut Shumenov.

“There’s a way of having a guy being somewhere where he really don’t know he’s playing into your game, he’s playing into your dictatorship, and you’ve seen something that I ain’t thought you saw,” Hopkins had said at a March 11 event promoting the bout with Shumenov. He had been asked about the way he’d told Shumenov which direction to face and pose for the media. “Now how do you translate that into the ring and putting someone under a trance or hypnosis without them actually even knowing that they under that spell?”

For one of the examples of other fighters he had manipulated, Hopkins mentioned a time he’d called Stevenson up to share a stage with him:

“I said, ‘Let’s do a stare down and get everyone riled up, shits and giggles.’ He had his sunglasses on. I said, ‘Take your sunglasses off.’ He took them off,” Hopkins said. “It gives you a blueprint on how far I can go. I got a starting point that I shouldn’t never got.”

Stevenson took to Facebook on Thursday night with this response, which is posted unedited:

“Answer to Bernard "Alien" Hopkins

“First of all, you are far from being intimidating. The reason I took off my sun glasses was simply by respect because you asked me to do a face to face. You can talk all the crap that you want and say how you can get in people head and all that B.S but if you step in the ring with me I would simply destroy you!!! I don’t care where you from and all the shit you talk because the only person who is impressed by that is yourself! I from Port –au-Prince Haiti and trust me where you from is a luxury compared at where I from. You call yourself an Alien but I can promise you that if I end up fighting you, you will come back on planet earth. There is nobody who s scare of you grandpa. I won’t need a sport therapist to bring you back on planet earth so you can play with your grandchildren.”

For more from the Bernard Hopkins interview from earlier in the week, check the video at http://bitly.com/1fonfIn

Pick up a copy of David’s new book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsamazon or internationally at http://bit.ly/fightingwordsworldwide . Send questions/comments via email at fightingwords1@gmail.com