ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. ? For 12 rounds Saturday night, Bernard Hopkins was a credit to boxing. After they were over and he?d lost the WBA and IBF light heavyweight titles and every one of those rounds to WBO champion Sergey Kovalev, he was a credit to himself and the woman who raised him.
Hopkins could have stood at a podium inside Boardwalk Hall and reminded the world he?d be 50 on Jan. 15 and, well, you know, the 31-year-old Kovalev didn?t beat him, the calendar did. He could have reminded everyone that 10 years ago, he?d promised Shirley Hopkins he wouldn?t fight past 40 and so was nearly a decade beyond where he thought he?d be. Or he could have pointed out with his sometimes surliness that the hardest punching light heavyweight in the division couldn?t knock out a 50-year-old man, so what does that say about him?
He could have made excuses or let the calendar make them for him, but he stubbornly refused, just as he?d refused to give in after Kovalev dropped him in the first round, buckled his knees twice later in the fight and assaulted him in what may have been the final two minutes of his time as a prize fighter. Instead, he refused to take from someone else what he?d pursued with singular focus for nearly 30 years. He refused to take from Sergey Kovalev the glory he?d earned in the hardest business there is.
?He?s got the skills and he?s got the belts to prove it,? Hopkins said after losing as unanimous a decision as possible, every round on all three judges? cards going to Kovalev. ?He was patient and he fought smart. I couldn?t get the range I wanted because he?d hit me and then step back. He was stepping back when I wanted to engage and engaging when I wanted to step back.
?I was taught a long time ago you fight when you want to fight. I had some success here and there, but not enough to get him off his game plan. To say it was because I?m 50, that takes away from him and I don?t want to do that. If you don?t belong in there, then you shouldn?t go in there. You just got to take your hat off to him. He did it on his terms. The better man was Kovalev tonight. I give him a lot of respect. I?ve been in with a lot of great fighters. He?s the real deal.?
For more than 25 years, so was Hopkins. He successfully defended the middleweight title a record 20 times then, at 41, moved up to light heavyweight after losing the middleweight title and two hotly disputed decisions to former Olympic medalist Jermain Taylor. Four years later, he won the WBC light heavyweight championship, losing it two years later before winning the IBF version 13 months later, and then unifying it with the WBA title in April.
At that point, Hopkins could have done what he wanted. He is a wealthy man with no known vices (a devout Muslim, Hopkins doesn?t smoke, drink or eat red meat, seldom eats foods processed with sodium, trains religiously and rarely exceeds the 175-pound light heavyweight limit between fights) and could have retired to his stately home in Delaware to work as the director of East Coast boxing for Golden Boy Promotions.
Or he could have fought any one he wanted in the 175-pound division, most of them far from formidable. Instead he chose the most-feared puncher in the division, one whom WBC champion Adonis Stevenson broke an agreement with HBO to avoid. Kovalev was not only undefeated (26-0-1, 23 KOs), he?d never been taken beyond eight rounds and was on a 14-fight knockout streak as he walked in to meet with an opponent nearly 20 years his senior.
For one of the few times in his career Hopkins (55-7-2, 32 KOs) wasn?t up to the challenge. He was dropped by a long right to the top of the head in the opening round and his knees buckled midway through the fight from a similar long right to the side of the head. Still, he fought on, using his professorial grasp of the mechanics of boxing to stave off a younger, stronger champion. Hopkins kept looking for opportunities to land a counter right-hand and found a few, but nowhere near enough.
In the fight?s final round, Hopkins was rocked once more, reacting by sticking out his tongue. Infuriated, Kovalev attacked and battered Hopkins, who punched back but only in those moments when his hands weren?t otherwise occupied protecting a chin that had refused to give in his 63 previous fights. It held firm and Hopkins made it to the end, the only fighter to last 12 rounds with Kovalev and the first to avoid being stopped by him in four years.
Going the distance was seen by some as a sort of moral victory, but Hopkins rejected that idea. Moral victory does not exist in boxing. It is the sport of dominance and Hopkins did not dominate in what may have been his last professional fight.
Hopkins was both humble and dignified in defeat, which is not easy for a fighter who not only survived 25 years as a prize fighter but also more than five year as a resident of Graterford Prison, Pennsylvania?s largest maximum-security facility. When he left there at the age of 22, he was told by an assistant warden he?d see him in six months. Hopkins assured him he would never be back, which was only partially correct.
Hopkins has been back as a beacon of hope for wayward young men like he?d been, living proof that all things are possible with discipline, focus and belief in yourself. On Saturday, he still possessed those traits, but it was not his night. Sergey Kovalev was the better fighter. But as Hopkins showed by the manner in which he handled a bitterly one-sided defeat, he was not a bitter man.
?Either you win or you lose,? he said. ?That?s what I was taught. That?s how I operate. He grabbed the torch tonight. I didn?t pass it. He deserves to be respected.?
Whether he ever puts on boxing gloves again or not, so does Bernard Hopkins.
