The shocking facts of where Bernard Hopkins grew up

[!! Shawn]

Robinson was a great finisher. I don't know why you would say otherwise.

The way I see it, Marciano was indeed a great finisher, even if he landed a solid boom that knocked people cold sometimes.

Moore not a finisher? How did he knock out 139 fighters again?
With one-punch KO's?

Tyson could be debated, I agree. But I've never seen Tyson **** up like Taylor did after hurting people.

Again, I assume we're talking prime here...

Robinson was not a great finisher. You seem to be mistaking the ability to knock an opponent out with the ability to finish a fighter off.

The ability to finish a fighter off is the ability to not let a fighter off the hook once they have recovered.

Robinson was not a top 5 finisher. Many fighters got off the hook, however many where latter flattened by a single punch. This is punching power, not finishing ability. The same goes for Tyson. Had Tyson been a great finisher, Buster Douglas would not have won. Same thing goes for Marciano. He was a puncher. He managed to pull countless fights out with a single right hand. That is not finishing, that is punching.

Archie Moore was a very very good boxer, a good puncher, and a good knockout artist, however, he was not the most prolific finisher. He was a prolific puncher.

Joe Louis was a prolific puncher, and a prolific finisher. Ray Leonard was a hard puncher, and a prolific finisher. Kelly Pavlik is a very hard puncher and a prolific finisher.

[Sweet Pea 50]

Prime stuff?
DLH was damn good at finishing people off as well.
Pavlik is pretty damn good though. But top five? Ehhhhh...

[!! Shawn]

Prime stuff?
DLH was damn good at finishing people off as well.
Pavlik is pretty damn good though. But top five? Ehhhhh...

DLH was good at forcing late stoppages. He was not the best finisher however, he got over anxious and often let hurt opponents recover.

[tyson]

Robinson was not a great finisher. You seem to be mistaking the ability to knock an opponent out with the ability to finish a fighter off.

The ability to finish a fighter off is the ability to not let a fighter off the hook once they have recovered.

Robinson was not a top 5 finisher. Many fighters got off the hook, however many where latter flattened by a single punch. This is punching power, not finishing ability. The same goes for Tyson. Had Tyson been a great finisher, Buster Douglas would not have won. Same thing goes for Marciano. He was a puncher. He managed to pull countless fights out with a single right hand. That is not finishing, that is punching.

Archie Moore was a very very good boxer, a good puncher, and a good knockout artist, however, he was not the most prolific finisher. He was a prolific puncher.

Joe Louis was a prolific puncher, and a prolific finisher. Ray Leonard was a hard puncher, and a prolific finisher. Kelly Pavlik is a very hard puncher and a prolific finisher.

Robinson's prime was at welter. I'd bet any boxing historian would say Robinson was a great finisher.

TheManchine would be the right guy to provide historical insight.

Marciano could be classified as a puncher, I can see that point.

Archie Moore I can't agree with.

JCC, Louis, Pryor, Saddler, Armstrong, Shane Mosley at 135...
It's not that hard to find people to equal Pavlik.

Just because he's the newest doesn't mean he's the best.

[Sweet Pea 50]

Robinson's prime was at welter. I'd bet any boxing historian would say Robinson was a great finisher.

TheManchine would be the right guy to provide historical insight.

Marciano could be classified as a puncher, I can see that point.

Archie Moore I can't agree with.

JCC, Louis, Pryor, Saddler, Armstrong, Shane Mosley at 135...
It's not that hard to find people to equal Pavlik.

Just because he's the newest doesn't mean he's the best.

Damn, JCC and the Hawk....
Pretty steep company right there.
And your right, TheManchine could probably school all of us on this topic.

[Motofan]

Why is he "street?" He doesnt act like a wannabe gangta like some fighters.

[Bea5T]

Bernard Hopkins tears off his T-shirt and points to the scar on the left side of his chest. "You see that? That's where the blade went in," he says. "Missed my heart by nothing. There's two more like that in my back, as well."

Hopkins is standing beside the ring at the Classic Kick Boxing gym here in Pasadena, California, where he has just spent the day honing his body and skills. On a wall by the entrance someone has pinned a simple message from Muhammad Ali

Champions aren't made in gyms," it reads. "Champions are made from something deep inside them."

Ali may have been talking about himself but the statement could equally apply to Hopkins.

In 20 days' time, the fighter who calls himself The Executioner will climb into the ring in Las Vegas to take on Britain's Joe Calzaghe. For both men it is a defining moment.

For Calzaghe, who flies out this week to his training camp in Nevada, it will be a huge test of his ability to step up from the super-middleweight division, where he reigns as world champion, to light-heavyweight and extend his extraordinary record of 44 wins in 44 fights.

But for Hopkins the fight is about something more than statistics. Impressive though his own record may be, with just four defeats in 54 bouts, every time Hopkins steps through the ropes he knows he is defying his own turbulent past.

And it is the memory of the life of violence and crime that he has left behind that leads Hopkins to believe that, no matter how impressive Calzaghe's record may be, come April 19 in Las Vegas there can be only one winner.

"I have no fear of losing because I have no fear of dying," says Hopkins. "In fact, I should already be dead. It's because I'm not that I've become the person I have. And that's very bad news for Joe Calzaghe."

Hopkins, like many a fighter in America, is a product of the mean streets. Born in North Philadelphia 43 years ago, by the age of 17 he was in prison, serving an 18-year sentence for robbery with violence.

Shortly before he entered the Pennsylvania State Correctional Institution at Graterford, the state's largest maximum security prison, his brother, Michael, was murdered, shot in the back in their old neighbourhood.

In prison, Hopkins witnessed nightmare events which live with him to this day and continue to fuel his fire.

But he also educated himself and took up boxing again, having been a talented young amateur before falling foul of the law.

He won penitentiary titles and turned professional following his release on parole after serving four years and eight months of his sentence.

His return to the troubled neighbourhood where he grew up was traumatic. On three occasions, he was stabbed. But he had vowed never to return to prison and, instead of falling back into crime, he began a long and successful career in the fight game.

He is seven years older than Calzaghe, but if his physical shape commands attention, it is nothing compared to his strength of will.

"I am blessed that I didn't fall by the wayside like so many of my friends and family," says Hopkins. "But it was a closerun thing.

"It was challenging being inside the penitentiary. It was the toughest in the whole of the United States. I saw extortion. I saw ****. I saw a guy hang himself.

"I saw an inmate kill another. I watched a man go crazy. I was just 17, 18, but I'll tell you something; it was harder when I was released than it ever was inside jail.

"People didn't want to know. I was a convicted felon and unemployable. It would have been so easy to have returned to my bad old ways. I still had the reputation. I could have carried on beating people up and taking what was theirs.

"I could have turned to the heroin and ******* that was rampant in North Philadelphia. It was a violent society. And that's why I got stabbed three times. On one of those occasions, I lay in a hospital bed for 30 days with all kinds of tubes sticking out of me.

"The stabbing in my chest somehow missed my heart but only just. It got me thinking. Why was I still alive when my brother was dead? Why was I still breathing when so many of my friends had stopped?

"Then I realised I could never return to Graterford. I had a choice, like we all have, no matter how hard a hand we've been dealt. I chose life, and boxing enabled me to find it."

But if boxing enabled Hopkins to build a decent life, it is also true that his experience of the worst side of life informs his approach to his sport.

"Ninety-nine per cent of boxers, and that includes Joe Calzaghe, have not had to overcome what I have," he says.

"So, when it gets to the sixth round, or the eighth, or the ninth, when you have to dig deep into your soul, if you've never been required to do it like I have, you can't. Joe may have achieved what he's achieved but he won't be prepared for someone like me. That's not talk. That's a fact."

Hopkins makes no apologies for the person he becomes when the bell sounds for the start of each fight. "My past becomes my present," he says. "It takes me to a very dark place. But I've learned how to leave that man in the ring. I can return home to my wife and daughter as the guy you're talking to now. If I didn't, I wouldn't be alive today.

"But let's not dance around this matter. I have a licence to kill Joe Calzaghe. Not only that, I get paid millions for doing so. I'm not saying that's what I want to do but it happens. Joe holds that same licence. This is not something I take lightly, it's what we've both chosen to do."

If the image shocks, then it has to be said that Hopkins is no stranger to controversy.

Shortly after Ricky Hatton's defeat by Floyd Mayweather last December, Hopkins faced Calzaghe and told him: "I ain't never gonna lose to a white boy."

The reaction was one of outrage at was seen as a racial slur, but Hopkins insists he is not a racist and his remark was intended to test Calzaghe's reaction.

"I wanted to test the pulse," says Hopkins. "I knew it would get under his skin and it did. I smell fear in people that others can't because of where I've come from. Everyone knows I'm not a racist. Most of my team are white, and that includes my coach."

Hopkins claims he feels no pressing need to justify the words he used. "What I said was a social comment," he says. "Where I come from, in the North Philly projects, in the State Penitentiary, and especially in the boxing rings, I never saw a white face. So it's unacceptable to me that a white guy can defeat me after where I've had to drag myself up from."

He says he does not expect Calzaghe to hurt him but the question remains as to why a man of 43, with world titles to his name, would want to carry on fighting.

"It's a good question," he muses. "I've got 30 million dollars in the bank, a wife of 16 years and an eight-year-old daughter. Why would I want to put myself through all this punishment, even risk my life, to do what I've done so many times before? You would think that I don't need to do it.

"But there are always mountains to climb. You've always got something to prove, to yourself, to the doubters, to those who look down at you and to those who never gave you a chance.

"But above all else it allows that person who still lives in a very dark place to rear his head every so often in the ring, to do what he has to do and to get out again. I've been keeping him in check now for 21 years, just releasing him when I have to, and when it's legal.

"This is what Joe doesn't understand because there's no way he would. I have no personal problem with the man. He's probably a nice guy, if a little emotional. I'll just be doing my job. And pretty soon after the first bell sounds, Joe's gonna realise he's got one hell of a fight on his hands.

"Whatever Joe Calzaghe throws at me in the ring, it's nothing compared with what I've faced up to and managed to overcome in life. That's why there's only one ending to this story. You know it, I know it and, deep down, so does Joe Calzaghe."

I like how this was ignored

[Mistadobalina]

i got a question, does all that info on the front page about hopkins' neighborhood being affluent and howdy-doody account for its entire history?

just because it's a nice place now, doesn't necessarily mean it was a nice place back when bernard was growing up around there. remember that some of the most notorious hoods in the NY boroughs back in the day have been replaced by hipsters, art school pricks, and coffee-shop nerds.

[Point Blank]

wooops!!!! to hopkins. maybe he did live in a not so ****** neighborhood but probably the people and places he hangs out to are ****** types

[Gio]

Like I have said before, I don't nothing about Philly. But I understand about once blue collar neighborhoods turning into bad places.
Where I'm from, Oak Park used to be a middle class neighborhood back in the day. But back in the late 80's and especially the 90's, due to crack and the big time Blood presence, you wouldn't want to roll through unless you knew somebody. It's getting better, but I see what some of you are saying.

Oh ****, you from Sac. Whats up man.