Bernard Hopkins made a life of accomplishing what people believed he couldn?t and made a career out of achieving what others hadn?t.
He was an ex-con who defied the warden who said Hopkins would be back.
He was a pro fighter who lost his first boxing match and went on to have a Hall of Fame career.
He was a contender who lost his first world title fight, was held to a draw in his second, then won his third and didn?t lose again for a decade.
Six years into his reign, that world title landed him in a tournament that was designed to make Felix Trinidad the undisputed middleweight champion of the world. Instead, Hopkins dissected Trinidad in front of a crowd that wanted his head ? turning the tables on a man who called himself ?The Executioner? ? and thwarted promoter Don King?s plan.
It was Hopkins who emerged the best at 160 pounds and then continued to be, adding victory after victory until he had made a total of 19 successful defenses (20 if you count a ?no contest?) between 1995 and 2005. That was a record. So was so much of what came afterward.
After he lost, dropping two controversial decisions to Jermain Taylor and leaving the middleweight division behind, he also could?ve left the sport and waited five years to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Hopkins had promised his late mother that he wouldn?t fight past the age of 40, after all.
There was an after to come after all that.
There always was more to come. Every time he lost, every time he was written off, he?d show that his story wasn?t over.
At the age of 41, he went up two divisions from 160 to 175 and upset the true light heavyweight champion, Antonio Tarver, capturing a crown in a second weight class.
He regained it again five years later, defeating Jean Pascal at the age of 46. He was the oldest ever to win a lineal championship.
Even after he was dethroned for a second time, Hopkins was able to become one of the three best in his division, winning a world title at 48 and unifying it with another at 49, making him the oldest beltholder ever.
Hopkins made a career out of achieving what no one else ever had. And his career ended with others doing what no one else had ever done to him.
It didn?t end two years ago, when Sergey Kovalev, at the time one of the two best light heavyweights in the world, knocked Hopkins down in the first round and out-boxed him for the full 12, the only person to shut Hopkins out on the scorecards.
