Bernard Hopkins
Bernard Hopkins
Bernard Humphrey Hopkins Jr.is an American professional boxer who has held multiple world titles at middleweight and light heavyweight. He reigned as middleweight champion from 1994 to 2005, unifying and successfully defending his title a record 20 times. He won the IBF title in 1994, later adding the WBC, WBAand The Ring magazine titles in 2001, and became the first man to simultaneously hold world titles by all four major sanctioning bodies when he won the WBO title in 2004;...
ProfessionBoxer
Date of Birth15 January 1965
CityPhiladelphia, PA
Early on in my career I had the kind of anxious where you couldn't sleep at night. That anxiousness is like a virus we all have in us. Some you can deal with but some will wipe you out.
It takes a very very strong individual not to be corrupt in any of those things as time moves on. Myself and other people who went that road and experienced that world, some got a second birth of life and some is in the dirt.
Smokey Wilson was like my Gandhi. If I had run into somebody else in prison, with a different set of values, the world might have never known one of the greatest boxing talents ever to come out of Philadelphia.
I must destroy everybody that comes in front of me. I must execute them and I must do it in grand style. I must slay Robert Allen like I must slay De La Hoya or anybody else that steps in that ring.
I function better when my back is to the wall.
I was told I would be back in 90 days. If I listened to people, I would be back where I came from - the penitentiary.
I've done so many unpredictable things and so profoundly. Even the people who want to go against me, are afraid to go against me. They've been wrong so many times. A lot of them are just being mum right now. They must feel I can still do things.
This is a great position to be in. I don't really believe there is any fighter, in any decade that can be in my position of luxury that I've been in for many years.
I always not only want push the envelope in my career but I also have an itch for going against the grain.
This fight isn't about boxing, it's something deeper than that.
The NBA has a voice that's why they have a lockout. The NFL has a voice that's why they had a lockout. Boxing is the only sport that's individually represented the individual people - Managers, Promoters and Boxers.
I was made to be where I'm at. I just had to go through some challenges, so that I can educate others later.
I'd rather be an adviser. I don't wanna become a trainer because I think with the knowledge and the business sense that I've accomplished through my career and have credibility, why would I reduce myself down to being in a gym with a bunch of training which is not a bad thing to give advice, but I can do that with a suit and tie on and also be there when the cheques are written. I don't wanna be there when the cheques are handed down from 3 or 4 people's hands and then it hits mine as a trainer because 9/10 times, deductions have come out of that.
The powers that be don’t want athletes or boxers to become as smart as they are.