‘I’m Bernard Hopkins And I’m A Fighter’ – Oldest Ever Boxing World Champion Won’t Quit
THE 48-year-old Bernard Hopkins is the oldest fighter in boxing history to win a world title:
He also [broke that record] in 2011, at age 46, when he traveled to then-light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal’s turf in Montreal for a rematch of a controversial draw and outpointed him to break heavyweight legend George Foreman’s record. In beating [Karo] Murat [on October 26, in a fight promoted in the above video], Hopkins added to his historic legacy by becoming the oldest fighter to defend a world title, winning easily on the scorecards, 119-108, 119-108 and 117-110.
“I wanted to use my skills and reflexes that I still have at 48,” Hopkins said. “I want to tell all the kids out there and everybody out there in sports that you can do it clean and still be good, like myself, and never take drugs.
“I said I was going to throw combinations, and it’s hard to get adjusted to it when I have been used to throwing one or two punches like I have most of my career. When I found the rhythm things became easy.”
In March 2013, The Executioner’ claimed IBF light-heavyweight crown with victory over Tavoris Cloud, 17 years his junior
“I have a history of destroying young champions and then we don’t see them again. Not sure if you’ll see Cloud again.”
Should he retire? Kelefa Sanneh:
When fans try to shame veterans like [James] Toney and [Shane] Mosley into retirement, they often speak the language of concern: they don’t want to see a boxer get injured or worse; they don’t want to hear people saying, after a catastrophic fight, that the tragedy was predictable. But boxing is predictably tragic; if we truly didn’t want to see fighters get injured, we wouldn’t watch them fight. When fans cheer Hopkins, hitting and getting hit in the twelfth round, even when he probably knows he has already won, they say they admire his bravery. … Some fans play doctor, scrutinizing interviews for signs of altered speech, and yet there’s something perverse about urging a man to fight until he’s damaged, then urging him to stop.
Why stop?
Posted: 5th, November 2013 | In: Sports Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
