WBC light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins, who made history earlier this year as the oldest fighter ever to win a world title with his defeat of Jean Pascal, has had a less than positive opinion of mixed martial arts in the past.
He said before his fight with Enrique Ornelas in 2009:
“I don’t want to watch two grown men, with panties on wrestling, …I mean I’m from the hood, we don’t play that. To me I’m not buying a ticket to watch two men with panties on sweating, nuts in they face, that’s not me”
“To compare that to boxing is ludicrous, to compare UFC and MMA to boxing the whole cosmetic of it, to me it’s a porno”
On MMA fans:
“Most of those people, they might have chains and masks in their closets”
He also said in a radio interview with Jim Rome in 2007:
“You can can go to the nearest bar in L.A. and the Hood and find a Ultimate Fighter. I mean, I’m not saying they don’t train, they don’t get up and they don’t run, but there’s no skills actually the way boxing is.”
Of course Hopkins is no stranger to inflammatory comments, and said before his fight with Joe Calzaghe:
“I would never let a white boy beat me,”
“You can print that. I would never lose to a white person. He said on record that he’s going to take the fight and that’s all you need to hear.”
Which came shortly before decidedly white Welshman Joe Calzaghe did indeed beat him.
Now however the Philly native, never one scared to voice his opinion on a subject however controversial, appears to have had a change of heart.
Speaking to MMAFighting’s Ariel Helwani during a UFC 133 open workout, Hopkins said:
“All jokes to the side is that, the respect that I have for the UFC and MMA is basically (Eddie) Alvarez who trains here and a couple other guys that I met personally over the years, and just to see them workout and train, I gotta say, I was wrong”
