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Posted on Thu, Jan. 24, 2008
Hopkins selling tickets in black and white
By BERNARD FERNANDEZ
Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/...and_white.html
fernanb@phillynews.com
IF YOU THINK the race card is being played in the ongoing Hillary Clinton-Barack ***** scrap, wait until the countdown to the April 19 matchup of Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins and Joe Calzaghe at Las Vegas' Thomas & Mack Center.
Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs), the Cardiff, Wales, southpaw who has defended versions of the super middleweight championship a division-record 21 times, will be making his light-heavyweight debut as the challenger for The Ring magazine 175-pound title held by Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KOs), who made a division-record 20 defenses of the middleweight crown.
But this fight - which has been discussed, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, for 6-plus years - is not so much about boxing history as it is about something as elemental as, say, black and white.
As recently as last month, it seemed as if Hopkins, 43, and Calzaghe, 35, would never get beyond the point of trading insults from afar. That changed when Calzaghe traveled to Las Vegas, ostensibly to cheer on his fellow Brit, Ricky Hatton, for his Dec. 8 bout with WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Calzaghe, however, had an ulterior motive: To confront Hopkins and possibly dissolve the impasse.
Mission accomplished.
When Calzaghe and Hopkins got nose-to-nose in the press room at the MGM Grand on Dec. 7, heated words were exchanged and Hopkins, who is black, told the Welshman he "would never let a white boy beat me" as a phalanx of American and British reporters looked on.
For his part, Calzaghe called Hopkins an "idiot," and vowed that he would shut him up where it counted, inside the ropes.
"He will lose to me," Calzaghe said. "I throw a thousand punches a round. He throws 12. He doesn't stand a chance. I'm going to whip his [butt]."
Hopkins' comments drew an immediate and almost entirely negative response from media members from both countries, who chastised the North Philadelphia product for raising the race issue.
To hear Hopkins tell it, though, there was nothing spontaneous or mean-spirited about what he said. Heck, Hopkins insisted, he has nothing against white people. Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Hopkins' promotional company, Golden Boy Promotions, helped put together the fight and physical conditioning guru Mackie Shilstone again is being brought in to help whip B-Hop into tip-top shape. Both are white.
"And one of my best friends is Dave Tiberi, who is white," Hopkins said of the former middleweight contender. "He lives about 10 minutes from me in Delaware.
"Dave used to tell me about the [racial taunts] he had to go through when he trained at Champ's Gym in North Philly. Fighters say things, but it isn't always what it seems. It's just another way of talking trash. It doesn't mean I think white guys can't fight. I know better than that.
"Look, Larry Bird was one of the greatest basketball players ever, but Isiah Thomas said that if he were black, he'd be just another player. Call it talking smack, call it a cultural thing. Whatever it is, it raises the stakes."
Hopkins said his intention was to create an impetus to get the fight made, and also to drive pay-per-view sales. The man figures he knows what sells in a marketplace where skin color sometimes makes for a natural rooting interest.
"People choose up sides for whatever reason," Hopkins said. "Go back to Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson. A lot of [white] Americans were for Johansson instead of for Patterson. Go back to Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney. That fight split along racial lines, with black people for Holmes and white people for Cooney.
"Those guys became very good friends afterwards, but their fights sold better because of the black-white thing. This is not anything new."
As is Hopkins' penchant for seemingly outrageous behavior. In the lead-up to his Sept. 29, 2001 middleweight unification bout with Puerto Rican national hero Felix Trinidad, he twice threw down the Puerto Rican flag, once while in San Juan. That nearly precipitated a riot.
What one person calls insensitivity, Hopkins calls strategy. He believes he was successful in enraging Trinidad, possibly to the point of affecting him in the ring, and he has no doubt that interest in that fight was heightened by his antics.
"Mark Taffet [HBO's pay-per-view chief] came up to me later and said, 'Bernard, you did it again. That was great,' '' Hopkins said of the verbal gauntlet he threw down at Calzaghe. "It was like he could see the pay-per-view numbers going up."
Hopkins also intends to play up the America-vs.-Britain angle. He said he'd be like Paul Revere, constantly advising his countrymen that the British are coming, and that he might wear red, white and blue trunks into the ring.
But, Hopkins said, not even nationalistic fervor trumps race when it comes to hyping a fight involving a black man and a white man. And while he agrees that shouldn't be so in this, the ninth year of the 21st century, he said wishing for a colorblind society doesn't necessarily make it so.
"People say the world has changed, but not that much," Hopkins said. "I'm just telling it like it is. If I were to suddenly become diplomatic, that would not be who I am and who I always have been.
"Speaking up is what makes me me. I walk that line, and sometimes it's a dangerous line. Sometimes it costs me to be me."
Hopkins said he expects thousands of Brits to pour into Las Vegas and the crowd to be for Calzaghe, much as it was for Hatton against Mayweather.
"I work best when I'm the underdog," Hopkins said. "That's my comfort zone. Calzaghe's fans don't realize it, but when they root for Joe, they'll be inspiring me." *
Hopkins selling tickets in black and white
By BERNARD FERNANDEZ
Philadelphia Daily News
http://www.philly.com/philly/sports/...and_white.html
fernanb@phillynews.com
IF YOU THINK the race card is being played in the ongoing Hillary Clinton-Barack ***** scrap, wait until the countdown to the April 19 matchup of Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins and Joe Calzaghe at Las Vegas' Thomas & Mack Center.
Calzaghe (44-0, 32 KOs), the Cardiff, Wales, southpaw who has defended versions of the super middleweight championship a division-record 21 times, will be making his light-heavyweight debut as the challenger for The Ring magazine 175-pound title held by Hopkins (48-4-1, 32 KOs), who made a division-record 20 defenses of the middleweight crown.
But this fight - which has been discussed, on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, for 6-plus years - is not so much about boxing history as it is about something as elemental as, say, black and white.
As recently as last month, it seemed as if Hopkins, 43, and Calzaghe, 35, would never get beyond the point of trading insults from afar. That changed when Calzaghe traveled to Las Vegas, ostensibly to cheer on his fellow Brit, Ricky Hatton, for his Dec. 8 bout with WBC welterweight champion Floyd Mayweather Jr.
Calzaghe, however, had an ulterior motive: To confront Hopkins and possibly dissolve the impasse.
Mission accomplished.
When Calzaghe and Hopkins got nose-to-nose in the press room at the MGM Grand on Dec. 7, heated words were exchanged and Hopkins, who is black, told the Welshman he "would never let a white boy beat me" as a phalanx of American and British reporters looked on.
For his part, Calzaghe called Hopkins an "idiot," and vowed that he would shut him up where it counted, inside the ropes.
"He will lose to me," Calzaghe said. "I throw a thousand punches a round. He throws 12. He doesn't stand a chance. I'm going to whip his [butt]."
Hopkins' comments drew an immediate and almost entirely negative response from media members from both countries, who chastised the North Philadelphia product for raising the race issue.
To hear Hopkins tell it, though, there was nothing spontaneous or mean-spirited about what he said. Heck, Hopkins insisted, he has nothing against white people. Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Hopkins' promotional company, Golden Boy Promotions, helped put together the fight and physical conditioning guru Mackie Shilstone again is being brought in to help whip B-Hop into tip-top shape. Both are white.
"And one of my best friends is Dave Tiberi, who is white," Hopkins said of the former middleweight contender. "He lives about 10 minutes from me in Delaware.
"Dave used to tell me about the [racial taunts] he had to go through when he trained at Champ's Gym in North Philly. Fighters say things, but it isn't always what it seems. It's just another way of talking trash. It doesn't mean I think white guys can't fight. I know better than that.
"Look, Larry Bird was one of the greatest basketball players ever, but Isiah Thomas said that if he were black, he'd be just another player. Call it talking smack, call it a cultural thing. Whatever it is, it raises the stakes."
Hopkins said his intention was to create an impetus to get the fight made, and also to drive pay-per-view sales. The man figures he knows what sells in a marketplace where skin color sometimes makes for a natural rooting interest.
"People choose up sides for whatever reason," Hopkins said. "Go back to Ingemar Johansson and Floyd Patterson. A lot of [white] Americans were for Johansson instead of for Patterson. Go back to Larry Holmes and Gerry Cooney. That fight split along racial lines, with black people for Holmes and white people for Cooney.
"Those guys became very good friends afterwards, but their fights sold better because of the black-white thing. This is not anything new."
As is Hopkins' penchant for seemingly outrageous behavior. In the lead-up to his Sept. 29, 2001 middleweight unification bout with Puerto Rican national hero Felix Trinidad, he twice threw down the Puerto Rican flag, once while in San Juan. That nearly precipitated a riot.
What one person calls insensitivity, Hopkins calls strategy. He believes he was successful in enraging Trinidad, possibly to the point of affecting him in the ring, and he has no doubt that interest in that fight was heightened by his antics.
"Mark Taffet [HBO's pay-per-view chief] came up to me later and said, 'Bernard, you did it again. That was great,' '' Hopkins said of the verbal gauntlet he threw down at Calzaghe. "It was like he could see the pay-per-view numbers going up."
Hopkins also intends to play up the America-vs.-Britain angle. He said he'd be like Paul Revere, constantly advising his countrymen that the British are coming, and that he might wear red, white and blue trunks into the ring.
But, Hopkins said, not even nationalistic fervor trumps race when it comes to hyping a fight involving a black man and a white man. And while he agrees that shouldn't be so in this, the ninth year of the 21st century, he said wishing for a colorblind society doesn't necessarily make it so.
"People say the world has changed, but not that much," Hopkins said. "I'm just telling it like it is. If I were to suddenly become diplomatic, that would not be who I am and who I always have been.
"Speaking up is what makes me me. I walk that line, and sometimes it's a dangerous line. Sometimes it costs me to be me."
Hopkins said he expects thousands of Brits to pour into Las Vegas and the crowd to be for Calzaghe, much as it was for Hatton against Mayweather.
"I work best when I'm the underdog," Hopkins said. "That's my comfort zone. Calzaghe's fans don't realize it, but when they root for Joe, they'll be inspiring me." *
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