Nature or nurture? Tastes great or less filling? Is it live or is it Memorex?
There are many possible answers why some elite athletes can not only survive into their 40s, but prosper. It can be as simple as an accident of birth. It can be as complex as scientific treatises on the human body and what it is capable of performing under extreme duress. It can be some combination of innate talent, good genes and a high pain threshold.
Sometime in the distant future, when Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins succumbs to his final opponent, death, it’s a pretty safe bet that scholarly researchers in the field of physiology will want to examine the cadaver to determine just what it was, exactly, that made him such an anomaly.
Even the 42-year-old Hopkins – rated the sixth-best pound-for-pound fighter in the world in the current edition of The Ring magazine – is curious as to what has kept him going so long at such a high level of productivity. It can’t all be because he claims to have gone 20 years without eating a cookie or a doughnut, although, if true, that probably qualifies him for a mention in the Guinness Book of World Records, or maybe Ripley’s Believe It or Not.
“I’m seriously thinking about taking a test on my DNA,” said Hopkins (47-4-1, 32 KOs), who puts his Ring light heavyweight championship belt on the line against Winky Wright (51-3-1, 25 KOs) tomorrow night at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. “In the course of Bernard Hopkins being born, something slipped inside my system that helped me to get to where I’m at.
“When you’re young, you eat the bad foods, the candy bars and stuff like that. But I think it comes all the way back to genetics, and taking care of yourself. You have to understand the physical part of the sport to be able to give yourself your best chance to win. That means training hard and living right.”
There is a school of thought, evidently subscribed to by Wright, that Hopkins’ lengthy run as one of the best fighters on the planet must be nearing an end because, well, his birth certificate mandates it. Calendars don’t lie, even if aging fighters reflexively attempt to shield themselves from certain harsh truths. Sure, Hopkins might have the body of a 25-year-old – an extremely fit 25-year-old – but nobody goes on forever, particularly in a sport where some practicioners (like, say, fellow Philadelphians Meldrick Taylor and David Reid) find themselves on the downsides of their careers while still in their 20s.
When Wright – no spring chicken himself at 35 — looks at B-Hop, he sees what a lot of doubters see: an old man who should have stayed retired after he trounced Antonio Tarver in his “farewell” bout of June 10, 2006.
“You ain’t never seen Bernard’s face all swole up – yet. You ain’t never see Bernard beat up – yet,” Wright said. “But on July 21, it’s going to happen.
“Maybe he should have stayed retired. After this fight, he’s going to know he should have stayed retired.”
Or maybe Hopkins will continue to roll on, like the mighty Mississippi, accepting and winning high-profile fights into his mid-40s because, by dint of his unmatched work ethic and some rare and mysterious gift other fighters don’t receive, he is as resistant to the laws of diminishing returns as it ever gets in boxing.
Given what he has been and very well still might be even at his advanced age, it wouldn’t be a shock if Hopkins were to go down in history as the most accomplished boxer ever to step inside the ropes beyond his 40th birthday.
The incomparable Sugar Ray Robinson? Yes, Robinson soldiered on until he was 44, but he captured the last of his astounding six middleweight championships, on a split decision over Carmen Basilio in 1958, when the most superb fighting machine that ever drew breath was a relatively spry 37. For the last seven years of his career the original and best Sugar Ray mostly was a mere shadow of his former self, only occasionally capable of summoning flashes of the old magic.
Archie Moore? No doubt, the “Old Mongoose” – who was 49 at the time of his retirement from boxing in 1963 — was a rare breed, winning or defending the light heavyweight title nine times while in his 40s. But even Moore’s familiar luminescence was flickering badly in the latter stages of his career.
George Foreman? Hey, Foreman’s second reign as heavyweight champion came at the improbable age of 45, when he dispatched Michael Moorer with a single, crushing overhand right in 1994, but then punching power is the last attribute any fighter yields to the ravages of time. Besides, Big George – who claimed to be on a “See Food” diet (he ate everything he saw) – was hardly anorexic in his dining habits. During his comeback following a 10-year retirement from boxing, the George Foreman we all came to know and love might not have been able to go 20 minutes without a doughnut, much less 20 years.
So perhaps the fortysomethings against whom Hopkins is most accurately gauged are not other fighters, but golden oldies in different sports such as pitchers Nolan Ryan and Roger Clemens and wide receiver Jerry Rice.
In one of those Top 20 lists that are such a staple of ESPN Classic’s programming, the sixth and seventh no-hitters thrown by Ryan – a power pitcher for all of his 27 major league seasons – while in his 40s took the top spot. Roger Clemens going 18-4 with a 2.98 earned run average and winning his seventh Cy Young Award in 2004, at 42, was No. 2, and Rice catching 92 passes for 1,211 yards and being named to his 13th Pro Bowl in 2002, at 40, was No. 5.
The only boxing feat to earn a mention was Foreman’s whacking of Moorer, at No. 3. Hopkins’ total domination of Tarver, then widely recognized as the premier light heavyweight, presumably would have drawn an honorable mention, had there been such a thing.
Hopkins doesn’t mind being compared to standouts in other sports – he is an admirer of Rice, another renowned workout warrior – but he said the role model he patterned himself after is a similarly special middleweight with six-pack abs and a dedication to conditioning that bordered on the fanatical.
“Early in my career, I made the decision to never do anything that would prevent me from giving myself my best chance to win,” said Hopkins, who for five weeks trained at the Wild Card Gym in Los Angeles with new chief second Freddie Roach. “That’s a real powerful statement. I got up at 4:30 a.m. – on my own, with no alarm clock — to run those (southern California) hills. That is the profound discipline I have followed over the last 15 or 20 years.
“I love Jerry Rice, but the guy whose book I took a page out of was the great Marvelous Marvin Hagler. He always came in great shape and he never had an excuse. Nobody ever expected him to NOT come in shape.
“Hagler was the most disciplined fighter of his era. I remember watching Marvin Hagler against a young, strong guy like John `The Beast’ Mugabi. They went at it for 11 hard rounds, but it was conditioning, experience and who wanted it the most that won that fight for Hagler. He’s the one I took my work habits from.”
Whatever the inspiration, Hopkins’ work habits are exemplary to the point of taking on an air of historical perspective. Two of the most respected leaders in the once-revolutionary field of sports medicine, Mackie Shilstone and Pat Croce, consider Hopkins a leading example of what can happen when a freakish physical capacity – a glitch, Shilstone calls it – combines with a driving desire to excel.
“I’ve dealt with 3,000 world-class athletes,” said Shilstone, the New Orleans-based conditioning guru whose list of boxing clients has included Michael Spinks, Roy Jones Jr. and Hopkins, whom he helped gain weight the proper way for bouts in higher weight classes, and heavyweight Riddick Bowe, whom he helped to take excess weight off. “Probably Roy Jones had the best innate skill set. (Baseball Hall of Fame shortstop) Ozzie Smith had the best reactions. And Bernard Hopkins, without question, has the greatest discipline. Bernard Hopkins can outcondition anyone.”
So is Hopkins one of those so-called “freaks of nature” that you sometimes hear about? Someone who emerged from the gene pool dripping with physical advantages?
“I wouldn’t exactly call it that,” said Shilstone, who helped Hopkins bulk up for the Tarver fight but declined an offer to be involved in the preparations for Wright because, he said, the matchup did not excite him. “But Bernard has a gift. Some would call it a glitch in his physical makeup. I’ve read research studies on (soccer’s) Mia Hamm and (cycling’s) Lance Armstrong. They had physiological glitches, if you will. That kind of glitch does exist. I know it. I can see it.
“But even elite athletes can fail to nurture that gift. It can go out the window if you don’t work at it.”
The relentlessly upbeat Croce is perhaps best known as being a former minority owner and team president of the Philadelphia 76ers during their run to the NBA Finals in the 2000-01 season. But he made his fortune as the perpetual motion machine behind Sports Physical Therapists, which he founded in 1984, expanded into a chain of 40 fitness centers and sold in 1993 for $40 million.
Unlike Shilstone, whom he lauds as another “pioneer” in the field of sports medicine, Croce said there is such a thing as a freak of nature.
“Look at Allen Iverson,” he said of the longtime Sixers superstar (now with the Denver Nuggets) whose disdain for practice nearly matched the boundless energy he always brought to game night. “He’s a prime example. He really is a physical freak. For 11 years he’s been a great basketball player and at no time did he ever do much in the way of conditioning.
“On the other hand, you have guys like Jerry Rice and Michael Jordan. Jordan used to have something called the `Breakfast Club.’ Every morning he and other athletes would work out to the point where everyone else was utterly exhausted, but Jordan could still go on.
“Usually, (great athletes) are the product of genetics and conditioning. I always used to tell Allen, `You have no idea how great you could be if you physically prepared the way you need to.’”
Croce said the three best-conditioned athletes with whom he worked — Mike Schmidt, Julius Erving and Bobby Clarke – are Philly legends for a reason. All are in their respective sport’s Hall of Fame.
“Mike Schmidt trained so hard that when he got the 1980 MVP he thanked me as one of the people who helped take him to that level,” Croce recalled. “He didn’t know what his body could tolerate until he pushed it beyond the normal boundaries of baseball.
“Dr. J would train extremely hard. Bobby Clarke, too. All three of those guys were willing to pay the price for greatness. It’s not just how much time you devote to practicing your sport. They also put the time in with me.
“Some of the stuff I did I took from the Russians because they were kicking the United States’ ass (in international competitions) at the time. They were so far advanced in things like biometrics, diet, nutrition and rest/work intervals. We weren’t doing any of that here. But now science has become a part of general training principles.”
And his thoughts on Bernard Hopkins?
“I don’t know him, but I wish I did because I’m a big fan of his,” Croce said. “Not just because he’s from Philly and he’s a stone-cold killer, but because I love the way he trains.”
Even Croce, who keeps tabs on premier athletes with gonzo training regimens, hadn’t heard of Hopkins’ two-decade no-doughnut and no-cookie fast. (B-Hop now admits to having had a dessert or two during his monitored climb from middleweight to light heavyweight.)
“Oh, my goodness,” Croce said. “You want to talk about mental fortitude and discipline? Come on. Who can compete with that? That’s amazing.
“But that gets back to what I’m talking about. Guys like Hopkins, you have to marvel at their cardiovascular capacity. It’s also their mental capacity. The best of the best push themselves to an anerobic threshold. There’s a level at which your body produces lactic acid. You begin to feel nauseous, which is when you see people give up.
“For truly elite athletes, though, three things happen. They train in such a way that the lactic acid builds up more slowly. They tolerate lactic acid longer and they dissipate lactic acid more quickly. As they result, they rebound faster and they can tolerate pain better. They’re able to perform at high levels of intense activity for longer periods of time.”
This sort of stuff can fill books, and it has. Not that Hopkins needs to read about all the equations and the formulas that go into explaining why he is what he is. He does what he feels he has to do every day and that’s that. The rest is just details.
“If you can do it with pride and do it with dignity, if you can do it without embarrassing yourself, your family and your sport, fight on, fight on, fight on,” he said of an extended prime he gauges can last another three years.
“Not everyone has that luxury. I’m blessed, man. I’m unique, I’m rare and I’m special.”
