By Jeff Zimmerman
Fightnews.com® caught up with the living legend Bernard “B-Hop” Hopkins, who will be inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame this June as part of the 2020 class, as he shared his experiences during his five years in the Pennsylvania state penitentiary where he found boxing again after introduced to the sweet science as a young child by his uncles who boxed. Hopkins also talked about the future stardom of Vergil Ortiz Jr. and the potential greatness of Ryan “Kingry” Garcia, both with upcoming fights in March and April respectively. He also praised Seniesa “Superbad” Estrada and calls her a firecracker and provides words of wisdom for champ Joshua Franco and much more in this exclusive interview.
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First time I saw Hopkins fight, it was on ESPN. He was 3-1 (2 KOs) at the time. I remember thinking that he had a bright future in the sport. He damn sure did. One of the all-time greats in my opinion. Wish I could have seen him and Toney in the ring together though. That would have been something.
Yes, good potential matchup with Toney. Tony, in his prime, had outstanding defensive skills using his shoulder and head movement. Toney’s counter punching was his weapon against many fighters. I think Toney would have edged Hopkins in a fight using the attributes just mentioned. Hopkins had bad habits where he would hit and hold on the inside while Toney would slip out of most inside clinches and counter punch. Toney rarely made any excuses as a fighter if he lost while Hopkins had a hard time admitting his faults in defeats and used anemic excuses. Just my observations. Have a good day today.
Toney was my favorite fighter of all time and out of all the fights that he didn’t fight that I wish he had of, definitely BHop would be at the top of the list USF. I would have taken Toney by decision, but I’m kinda biased.
@Lucie Would have almost certainly been a close decision either way, but that’s a toss-up if there ever was one IMO. REALLY difficult picking a winner there…
In my top 20 all time fighters. Toney in my top 10. A fight between the two would have been legendary. Hopkins KO of Joe Lipsey, in a world title defense, one of the most brutal ever seen. Lipsey was like 25-0 and never fought again. Saw Hopkins against Keith Holmes and Sergey Kovalev live. He became more of a spoiler late in his career, but he fought until age 51, and should have never been in the ring with young and heavy handed Joe Smith Jr.
Lipsey was highly regarded at the time, and yes, that was a brutal KO. Hopkins also had a couple of masterpiece performances against Trinidad & Pavlik, absolutely dominating both of them.
I remember Hopkins kicking the idea around of fighting Oleg Maskaev, who had a belt at the time. I had it in my head that Bernard was clever enough to win that on points. I was really interested in seeing that happen, but nothing ever came of it unfortunately.
Just goes to show you how good Roy Jones was in his prime. He beat Hopkins and dominated Toney.
Jones in his prime was so untouchable. That hand speed was unrelenting.
@Scoob Tremendous hand speed, very good power (at 160 & 168 anyway), and an unorthodox style. Really no way to get sparring to prepare you adequately for Jones, as there was nobody else remotely like him. Many, including the HOF-level Toney & Hopkins, had trouble even getting a glove on prime RJJ. Jones seemed like a nightmare to have to deal with.
IMO, Roy Jones never lost a round up to and including the John Ruiz fight. After that, different story for Roy…….
@Gary Aside from the first Griffin fight, I would agree with you. Jones had trouble with Griffin’s style for whatever reason, but blew him away in the rematch.
Hopkins. Racist man who doesn’t make top 10 middles of all time. Still decent enough. Dominated probably the worst era of middles although today’s are probably worse. Hop beats Canelo @60. Sorry my new school watered down boxing wet sox.
Bernard ‘ I won’t lose to a white’ Hopkins. He forgot to tell Calzaghe, Kovalev, and Smith. If a White fighter said this all hell would break loose. So much for wanting equal treatment amongst races.
Hopkins was a poor mans Marvin Hagler. Marvin could do everything Hopkins could do twice as good.
Bernard “I’ll never lose to a whiteboy” Hopkins was a racist POS. A pretty good champion who benefited from a very weak 160 lb era. Hagler clearly beats him over 15 rounds and Hearns outboxes him to win a clear cut decision. A 175lb title fight with Michael Spinks ends with the Spinks Jinx knocking Hopkins right out of the ring worse than Joe Smith did to Hopkins.
Respect Hopkins, he was a great boxer for his tremendous longevity and always being an in shape boxer, having great victories along the way. Don’t rate him up there with the all time greats though.
I thought B-Hop had no chance against Trinidad. Proved me wrong. Also kayoed Oscar. Gotta give him credit, although he got beat up by a few white boys. lol
Regarding Hopkins’ “White boy” comment, it was in bad taste IMO, but probably nothing more than trash talk. Hopkins was 43 when he lost to Calzaghe, 49 vs. Kovolev, and a month away from his 52nd Birthday against Smith. Surely past his best days against all three, but he lost to them despite having said that would NEVER happen. Probably a good idea to choose your trash talking a little more carefully than that.
I don’t think the general population cares much about any racial talk within the boxing world. I remember Conner McGregor referring to someone in Floyd’s camp as “Boy” in the lead-up to that fight. It was at a press conference, and McGregor was making it obvious that he was using it in a derogatory way. He may have been in hot water if he was in any other profession, but boxing is viewed as such a circus by most that outrageous comments don’t cause much of a stir except amongst hard-core fans.
– That was an outstanding interview.
– Thank you, Fight News.
Hopkins will go down as a top 10 middleweight but no where near the top 10 all time greats. With the never lose to a white boy comment was cringy AF IMO