By Norm Frauenheim-
Bernard Hopkins’ life as street thug, ex-con, Congressional witness, peace-maker, fighter, promoter, pundit, provocateur, butcher, baker and candlestick maker includes different nicknames, a couple of masks and roles only he knows are still within him.
“I’m not human,” Hopkins said in a recent conference call.
But he is.
There’s an endless array of humanity jammed into that one being who over the many years has been called Inmate #Y4145, The Executioner, B-Hop and today The Alien.
It’s what makes him so compelling. So challenging.
He shows us what is humanly possible on either side of those proverbial ropes. He’ll have to do it all over again Saturday night in Atlantic City against Sergey Kovalev in a light heavyweight-fight (HBO 10:45 pm ET/PT) as intriguing as any bout in the last year.
By now, circumstances confronting Hopkins have been documented and over-analyzed. Kovalev’s power and relative youth – he’s 31 – are a couple of factors that some think will finally stop Hopkins’ unprecedented defiance of time’s inevitability. He’ll be 50 in January.
Half-a-century is a long time anywhere. For anybody whose mileage has taken them past that birthday and deposited them in the senior-citizen division, Hopkins’ resilient ability to fight on is science fiction-like.
Hopkins swims as part of his training regimen these days. While watching him in the water during HBO’s pre-fight documentary, I wondered if there was a youth-restoring Cocoon from director Ron Howard’s 1985 Academy Award-winning movie at the bottom of that Philadelphia pool.
It’s alien all right, which explains that silly green mask that Hopkins wears. It’s not because he’s trying to hide a gray beard. He has always understood that boxing is a mix of sport and theater. Maybe, Kovalev will prove to be nothing more than just another vanquished face in his supporting cast. I think not. I predicted a Kovalev victory by decision for The Ring. http://ringtv.craveonline.com/news/362819-who-wins-bernard-hopkins-sergey-kovalev
Then again, I picked Hopkins to lose to Kelly Pavlik in 2008. Maybe, I should start wearing a fool’s mask.
Truth is, Hopkins is already a winner. The fight could get ugly, which might diminish what has already been accomplished. Nevertheless, Hopkins has done what you expect of somebody about to turn 50.
To wit: He’s become role model for a sport that badly needs one.
In stepping up to fight an emerging star and one of the game’s most feared punchers, he has embarrassed pound-for-pound contenders who are more than a couple of decades younger.
Hopkins reminds us – and hopefully them – that building a legacy is serious business. It’s a not a mere logo for a souvenir. Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s pursuit of legacy has begun to look manufactured. His TBE — The Best Ever – is on T-shirts and caps. Wonder if Manny Pacquiao has bought one? For a bonfire, maybe.
The Best Ever is not possible with a fight against the best. That’s what Hopkins is doing in his decision to face Kovalev. The build-up to the bout has included much of what is often attached to a Hopkins fight.
Race became an issue when he told ESPN that the fight is not a cover piece for Sports Illustrated or other major media, because he’s black. Because his last name isn’t Marciano or Stern, he said.
The comments, of course, generated some major-media coverage. It also was nothing new from Hopkins, who once said retired NFL quarterback Donovan McNabb wasn’t “black enough” and told Joe Calzaghe that he could never go back to the projects if he let “a white boy’’ beat him.
Any discussion of race these days is on the wrong side of the politically-correct fence. But when has race not been a part of boxing? It is the sport, after all, that created The Great White Hope, a term still used. Agree with Hopkins. Disagree with him.
But thank him for his honesty. He’ll never be able to mask that or anything else in a life full of evolving lessons about what humans shouldn’t do and what they can be. That’s a victory on any scorecard.
