Bernard Hopkins couldn’t answer the question everyone wanted to know on Saturday: Will he fight again?
The 49-year-old lost a wide decision to Sergey Kovalev Saturday in their light heavyweight title unification bout at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City that was never really close. Kovalev won all 12 rounds on all three judges’ cards and Hopkins never remotely was in the fight.
After the fight, promoter Oscar De La Hoya said he believed Hopkins would fight again, and he brought up the possibility of a catch-weight bout with middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin which he’d first discussed with Yahoo Sports on Friday.
But asked directly at the post-fight news conference if he would fight again, Hopkins was unable to answer.
“Asking me if I’m going to fight again right now is like asking a woman who just went through a nine-hour labor if she wants to have another baby,” Hopkins said with a grin on his face.
De La Hoya knows all about the emotions that come with a crushing defeat. Hopkins is his friend, as well as his business partner in Golden Boy Promotions, and so they know each other well.
And De La Hoya believes we haven’t seen the last of Hopkins just yet.
“It’s up to him and he has to think about it and decide what he wants to do,” De La Hoya said. “But I think the kind of guy he is, he’s going to want to fight again. And we could still do that Triple-G fight, absolutely.”
