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By Thomas Gerbasi - Back when he was a spry young man of 48, I interviewed Bernard Hopkins for Newsweek’s TheDailyBeast.com and wondered why his remarkable feats weren’t more celebrated by the mainstream media.
His response – and you know he had one – went like this:
“My personal feeling is that Bernard Hopkins has never been an industry boy. They’d rather talk about Lance Armstrong, who fooled all of them, got millions of dollars, and doped up for the last ten years and admitted it. Then you’ve got a Bernard Hopkins. You can take my stool, you can take my urine, you can watch me consume food, you can do anything you want to do; my story don’t mean nothing to them because I’m not the right person that they want to promote and push forward.”
He’s right, and that’s unfortunate, because we won’t see the likes of “The Executioner” or “The Alien” or whatever he’s being called these days, ever again.
Forget the part that says someone with Hopkins’ genetics and ability to laugh at Father Time only comes along once a generation, if that. In this day and age, and at 45, I hate to be “that guy” who talks about how things have gotten worse in the world as I’ve grown older, no one will a) want to fight as long as Hopkins has, and b) will want to work as hard as he has.
Think about it – when you bring up the topic of fighters with a Spartan work ethic, what names pop into your head immediately? If you’ve been paying attention over the years, it should be Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather. But Mayweather won’t fight until he’s 49, and who can blame him? Hopkins has though, and as he approaches his 64th professional fight against Beibut Shumenov this Saturday in Washington, D.C., he says he’s doing it for the history books, but I think he’s doing it because no one has been able to make him stop. [Click Here To Read More]
His response – and you know he had one – went like this:
“My personal feeling is that Bernard Hopkins has never been an industry boy. They’d rather talk about Lance Armstrong, who fooled all of them, got millions of dollars, and doped up for the last ten years and admitted it. Then you’ve got a Bernard Hopkins. You can take my stool, you can take my urine, you can watch me consume food, you can do anything you want to do; my story don’t mean nothing to them because I’m not the right person that they want to promote and push forward.”
He’s right, and that’s unfortunate, because we won’t see the likes of “The Executioner” or “The Alien” or whatever he’s being called these days, ever again.
Forget the part that says someone with Hopkins’ genetics and ability to laugh at Father Time only comes along once a generation, if that. In this day and age, and at 45, I hate to be “that guy” who talks about how things have gotten worse in the world as I’ve grown older, no one will a) want to fight as long as Hopkins has, and b) will want to work as hard as he has.
Think about it – when you bring up the topic of fighters with a Spartan work ethic, what names pop into your head immediately? If you’ve been paying attention over the years, it should be Hopkins and Floyd Mayweather. But Mayweather won’t fight until he’s 49, and who can blame him? Hopkins has though, and as he approaches his 64th professional fight against Beibut Shumenov this Saturday in Washington, D.C., he says he’s doing it for the history books, but I think he’s doing it because no one has been able to make him stop. [Click Here To Read More]
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