Says he can go another 5 or 6 more years. Good or bad move??????
New life for 'Executioner'Hopkins to unretire and fight Wright
By BERNARD FERNANDEZ
fernanb@phillynews.com
(AP)
Bernard Hopkins retired after his stunning upset of Antonio Tarver last June.BERNARD "The Executioner" Hopkins finally can celebrate a happy occasion the way most people do.
"I had me a slice of cheesecake at the MGM Grand Monday night," the Philadelphia boxing icon said from Las Vegas yesterday. "It was my first dessert in, like, 3 years. I love sweets, too. It's just that, when you're a fighter, you got to be disciplined."
Hopkins (47-4-1, 32 KOs), the former longtime middleweight champion, allowed himself to fall off the cheesecake wagon just this once because he's officially an active boxer again. On Saturday, he and former undisputed junior middleweight champ Winky Wright (51-3-1, 25 KOs) signed contracts to stage a 170-pound bout on July 21 at a location to be determined, and televised by HBO.
It will mark the first fight for Hopkins, 42, since June 10 when he bulked up to light-heavyweight and methodically took apart the division's top star, Antonio Tarver, en route to a 12-round unanimous decision in Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall.
Hopkins had announced beforehand that, win or lose, the Tarver fight would be his last. He had promised his late mother, Shirley, he'd retire from the ring by his 41st birthday, and although he missed the deadline by 5 months, he figured that was close enough.
But Hopkins, who put on the extra pounds under the strict supervision of noted fitness guru Mackie Shilstone, felt so fit at his new weight that it wasn't long before he began talking about resuming his career. With four fighters from former Soviet Union countries holding the most recognized heavyweight titles, he indicated he wanted to move all the way up to heavyweight to challenge WBC champ Oleg Maskaev and bring one of those belts home to the United States.
American Shannon Briggs dethroned Belarus' Sergei Liakho-vich on Nov. 4, however, and Maskaev apparently has decided to stage his next defense against mandatory challenger Samuel Peter or former WBC heavyweight king Vitali Klitschko. So Hopkins set his sights on something lighter, if not necessarily lower.
"As a promoter myself [as a partner in Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions], I can understand Maskaev's thinking," Hopkins said. "Maskaev didn't want to risk the embarrassment of losing to a bulked-up middleweight. He didn't want to be the next John Ruiz. Ruiz [the former WBA heavyweight titlist] was ruined by losing to Roy Jones. No true heavyweight wants to live with that for the rest of his life. If I had Maskaev, I would have told him the right move would be to leave Bernard Hopkins the [bleep] alone."
Undeterred, Hopkins then told Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, to get him a fight against as big a name as possible. Schaefer also sounded out WBO/IBF super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (42-0, 31 KOs), three-division former world champ Roy Jones Jr., (50-4, 38 KOs) and undisputed cruiserweight titlist O'Neil Bell (26-1-1, 24 KOs). But it was Wright, the slick southpaw from St. Petersburg, Fla., who has been calling out Hopkins for years, who rose to take the bait.
"I thought I had something going with Roy, but he apparently believes he's still the same fighter he was 10 years ago," Hopkins said. "He's in a state of denial as to where his career is. I didn't waste a bunch of time waiting on Roy to get real with his financial demands.
"At the end of the day, I think things worked out better for me. Almost everyone has Winky ranked up there among the top three or four pound-for-pound fighters. Beating him puts me right back there again, and at 42 years old, too.
"I can still compete at a high level. Time beats every athlete eventually, but it hasn't beaten me yet. I'm the Jerry Rice of boxing. My best fights are yet to come. I'm not saying I got 10 or 20 fights left in me, but I'm ready to fight the fights that matter and that need to happen."
Some would say that a matchup of Hopkins and Wright, both of whom are excellent defensively, is not likely to produce much slam-bam action. Hopkins begs to disagree.
"This fight is based on who can figure out the puzzle and make the other guy do what he don't want to do," Hopkins said.
"Winky is like a turtle. He likes to go into his shell. I'm going to show y'all how to get the turtle to stick his head out of his shell. I have to trick Winky into thinking it's safe to peek out of that defense of his.
"I know everything that Winky has, and I also know that Winky don't have as many weapons in his arsenal as I do. Winky's going to get hit more in this fight than he's been hit in any fight in his life."
Hopkins said he knows he'll be criticized for going back on his vow to his late mother.
"I know, in some ways, I can't justify this decision," he acknowledged. "But my mama Shirley, I think, would be OK with this. My sisters Bernadette, Yolanda, Marcie and Charmaine have signed off on it.
"I'm ready, man. I have a new career. It started on June 10, 2006. If I don't get any cuts, any injuries and I can stay out of the real hard fights, I could go another 4 or 5 years on my defense alone. I'm still at or near the top of my game."
New life for 'Executioner'Hopkins to unretire and fight Wright
By BERNARD FERNANDEZ
fernanb@phillynews.com
(AP)
Bernard Hopkins retired after his stunning upset of Antonio Tarver last June.BERNARD "The Executioner" Hopkins finally can celebrate a happy occasion the way most people do.
"I had me a slice of cheesecake at the MGM Grand Monday night," the Philadelphia boxing icon said from Las Vegas yesterday. "It was my first dessert in, like, 3 years. I love sweets, too. It's just that, when you're a fighter, you got to be disciplined."
Hopkins (47-4-1, 32 KOs), the former longtime middleweight champion, allowed himself to fall off the cheesecake wagon just this once because he's officially an active boxer again. On Saturday, he and former undisputed junior middleweight champ Winky Wright (51-3-1, 25 KOs) signed contracts to stage a 170-pound bout on July 21 at a location to be determined, and televised by HBO.
It will mark the first fight for Hopkins, 42, since June 10 when he bulked up to light-heavyweight and methodically took apart the division's top star, Antonio Tarver, en route to a 12-round unanimous decision in Atlantic City Boardwalk Hall.
Hopkins had announced beforehand that, win or lose, the Tarver fight would be his last. He had promised his late mother, Shirley, he'd retire from the ring by his 41st birthday, and although he missed the deadline by 5 months, he figured that was close enough.
But Hopkins, who put on the extra pounds under the strict supervision of noted fitness guru Mackie Shilstone, felt so fit at his new weight that it wasn't long before he began talking about resuming his career. With four fighters from former Soviet Union countries holding the most recognized heavyweight titles, he indicated he wanted to move all the way up to heavyweight to challenge WBC champ Oleg Maskaev and bring one of those belts home to the United States.
American Shannon Briggs dethroned Belarus' Sergei Liakho-vich on Nov. 4, however, and Maskaev apparently has decided to stage his next defense against mandatory challenger Samuel Peter or former WBC heavyweight king Vitali Klitschko. So Hopkins set his sights on something lighter, if not necessarily lower.
"As a promoter myself [as a partner in Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions], I can understand Maskaev's thinking," Hopkins said. "Maskaev didn't want to risk the embarrassment of losing to a bulked-up middleweight. He didn't want to be the next John Ruiz. Ruiz [the former WBA heavyweight titlist] was ruined by losing to Roy Jones. No true heavyweight wants to live with that for the rest of his life. If I had Maskaev, I would have told him the right move would be to leave Bernard Hopkins the [bleep] alone."
Undeterred, Hopkins then told Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy Promotions, to get him a fight against as big a name as possible. Schaefer also sounded out WBO/IBF super middleweight champion Joe Calzaghe (42-0, 31 KOs), three-division former world champ Roy Jones Jr., (50-4, 38 KOs) and undisputed cruiserweight titlist O'Neil Bell (26-1-1, 24 KOs). But it was Wright, the slick southpaw from St. Petersburg, Fla., who has been calling out Hopkins for years, who rose to take the bait.
"I thought I had something going with Roy, but he apparently believes he's still the same fighter he was 10 years ago," Hopkins said. "He's in a state of denial as to where his career is. I didn't waste a bunch of time waiting on Roy to get real with his financial demands.
"At the end of the day, I think things worked out better for me. Almost everyone has Winky ranked up there among the top three or four pound-for-pound fighters. Beating him puts me right back there again, and at 42 years old, too.
"I can still compete at a high level. Time beats every athlete eventually, but it hasn't beaten me yet. I'm the Jerry Rice of boxing. My best fights are yet to come. I'm not saying I got 10 or 20 fights left in me, but I'm ready to fight the fights that matter and that need to happen."
Some would say that a matchup of Hopkins and Wright, both of whom are excellent defensively, is not likely to produce much slam-bam action. Hopkins begs to disagree.
"This fight is based on who can figure out the puzzle and make the other guy do what he don't want to do," Hopkins said.
"Winky is like a turtle. He likes to go into his shell. I'm going to show y'all how to get the turtle to stick his head out of his shell. I have to trick Winky into thinking it's safe to peek out of that defense of his.
"I know everything that Winky has, and I also know that Winky don't have as many weapons in his arsenal as I do. Winky's going to get hit more in this fight than he's been hit in any fight in his life."
Hopkins said he knows he'll be criticized for going back on his vow to his late mother.
"I know, in some ways, I can't justify this decision," he acknowledged. "But my mama Shirley, I think, would be OK with this. My sisters Bernadette, Yolanda, Marcie and Charmaine have signed off on it.
"I'm ready, man. I have a new career. It started on June 10, 2006. If I don't get any cuts, any injuries and I can stay out of the real hard fights, I could go another 4 or 5 years on my defense alone. I'm still at or near the top of my game."
