?Let?s not get fooled, bamboozled and hoodwinked about the window dressing. I see this from afar, from experience. Game recognize game??
HOUSTON, Texas?Thursday afternoon in the Picasso Room at Houston?s downtown Marriott, Bernard Hopkins held court. The man who calls himself The Alien may in some respects be out of this world, but in other respects he?s as earthbound as a tree.
Hopkins is in Texas to promote Saturday?s fight between Canelo Alvarez and James Kirkland. He said next to nothing at the formal press conference, one of the tricks in his Philly toolbox, while the autodidact bided his time.
There?s no Q&A when one interviews Bernard Hopkins. There is Q, if one can get a word in edgewise. And then there is A.
Surrounded by reporters, Hopkins expounded on The Fight. With a twinkle in his eye, with an ace up his sleeve, words poured from his lips like water from the mouth of the Schuylkill River.
?The fighter checked the box on the form saying he has no injuries,? said Hopkins. ?We all do that when we fight. We all check the box before the fight, whether we?re injured or have been in the hospital or are on any kind of medication. They?ve got a box to make sure that you are right. This is standard by the commission. He checked the box saying he was fine. Don?t you understand? We got a process. It?s called due process. You have it in court, and you have it in the process of getting licensed and getting trainers and also documents need to be filed. You have to say and check off what?s right. When there?s a box that asks questions or asks if anything happened to you or any medication or anything that could somehow affect you as a fighter getting into that ring when the times comes, you gotta check that box. They?ve got a commission and body of people who look at that document. And if they see something that they?ve got to question you about, they question you about it.?
Hopkins smiled. He looked pleased. He looked sly.
?Obviously,? he continued, ?Pacquiao didn?t check that box that said ?last summer I had an injury but it?s okay now.? At least you go on record. But he?s not intelligent enough to figure that out, and whoever?s behind him isn?t intelligent. Because at the end of the day, do you think the fans is not intelligent to say, Wait a minute. You?re on Instagram. You?re on HBO and Showtime. Do you mean to tell me you?re hitting the bags, you?re throwing a million punches, sparring?you even hurt Freddie Roach at one camp?you mean to tell me all of a sudden you had an injury?
?My thing is this. Whether he had an injury or not, I think it was a cheap way to go out, and it was disrespectful, not only to boxing, but it was disrespectful to the fans who had a chance to embrace boxing again. And now Golden Boy Promotions and any other promoters who think like us we gotta now clean up their shit, and that means putting on the best shows, putting on the best events, and not letting this stuff happen on our watch. I asked Kirkland. I asked Canelo. ?Are y?all healthy?? You got a chuckle out of it ?cause it was kinda cute. But it was the right thing to say. Because of the suspicions the fans might be under, I tried to erase them by asking them right on the spot and then everybody know these two guys are warriors, they?re healthy, they?re ready to fight. If they?ve got a little bruise or a hangnail or something like that, they?re gonna clip it and get ready.?
I didn?t know Pacquiao had a hangnail. That explains everything.
?So my whole thing, man, is this: that everything is on the up and up when you come in that ring. And if your fighter?s not healthy, where he can?t perform the way he can, then don?t just put him in the ring when you know he?s hurt. This falls on everybody. Everybody look bad. ?Cause that?s a weak excuse to say you lost. Take your loss as a man and step up, because the embarrassment comes when you make lame excuses that could be true and don?t have to be true?and you make people think they?re not paying attention. To me, that?s the disrespectful part. Let?s say you lost. Let?s say you lost to one of the smartest minds in boxing right now, and been that way for over 10 years. I woulda took that pill. Nobody woulda argued with it. What else is new? The man is undefeated. Get in line.?
Hopkins paused. Then he reached out and tugged my goatee.
?How the heck somebody going to sit up there and tell his old G, old wizard, right??look at the gray?how the hell I?m?a tell him, ?My arm was messed up, my shoulder???
Having gotten Hopkins? attention, and the first of several appreciative pokes to my washboard abdomen, I asked about the May/Pac dream of resurrecting boxing, only to see it raised up and come crashing down.
?The hype for the fight was raised up. But boxing,? said Hopkins, ?boxing was seen and bought on the big stage. Whether it was world news, whether it was this, it?s based on, actually, the amount of money it was bringing. See, we?re in a country where money brings attention. When you start talking about money, in this country, THAT?S when it became crazy. When you talk about fighter getting a hundred million dollars, right? Right? Especially a black one, right? Not a baseball player who?s light-skinned, right? I?m gonna give you science. Now you?re talking about a black player getting a hundred million dollars for 30-plus minutes of boxing, three times 12, and you become a big story, Doc.
?But it?s America, ?cause man, the lights will be put on him, and the lights put on him for certain reasons. Now it becomes talked amongst venues that didn?t really care or talk about boxing. I was a party to the media frenzy. Had a great time. Gave my input. I got a chance to know what the deal was. I knew it before then, but actually in the circle, when you hear a question about who will win, the money came up. Five hundred million. That excited people. It?s the biggest sport in history, and not just boxing. Let me remind you we can gross almost half a billion dollars, right? Five hundred million. That?s why boxing was raised up. It wasn?t because of the two names. No, no, no, no, no. That was one-third of it. It was because the generation, the high rollers, what was going to be sold, food, booze, Vegas?even the prostitutes made money. Let?s not get fooled, bamboozled and hoodwinked about the window dressing. I see this from afar, from experience. Game recognize game.?
