Lunch with
a Middleweight King
By Alex
Pierpaoli
originally published in 2 parts on
DoghouseBoxing.com in
March of 2005
I
am a fan of long reigning, undisputed middleweight
champions. In these days of Jeff Gannon, Armstrong
Williams and media sources that spin news more than
disseminate it; I need to clarify where I stand. The
first fighter I remember rooting for was Marvelous
Marvin Hagler before his fight with Thomas Hearns. I had
watched Ray Mancini a couple times before that and I
even remember hearing of both of Ali-Spinks fights. But
before Hagler I didn’t really know or care much about
boxing. Hagler and his 8 minute war with Hearns changed
all of that. And it opened my eyes to middleweights; the
perfect balance between the bone cracking power of
heavies and the lightning speed of the lightweights.
As Bernard Hopkins’ career progressed and he piled up
successful title defenses he took on the guise of the
Marvelous One of this generation. In Hopkins we see a
crafty, roughhewn man who toiled in relative obscurity
for years, honing his skills and learning his craft away
from the sparkle and glitz reserved for some of boxing’s
superstars. The ex-convict turned pro-fighter, the
Executioner imagery; Hopkins cultivated some of the same
primal archetypes that the bald skull and the punches
he’d throw at himself before the bell, did for the
Marvelous One. They also share the Philadelphia
connection.
For Hagler, some of his toughest fights and two of his
three losses took place in Philadelphia. Bernard Hopkins
is the first born and bred Philadelphia middleweight
king; it seems natural to imagine the two in the ring
against each other. And it is because we can envision
them squaring up, feinting at each other, slipping and
winging bombs; because we can see it so vividly we know
Hopkins now occupies that legendary place in boxing that
is reserved for only the greatest of champions. So when
this writer had the opportunity to sit in on a luncheon
that Hopkins was to attend at The Mohegan Sun, there was
no way it could be missed.
Meeting Bernard Hopkins and listening to him speak is a
privilege for anyone with a passion for the Sweet
Science. He is very lean, and appears taller than
expected. His eyes are clear and alert; there is no
dullness in his gaze that can sometimes be seen in
fighters whose careers were not as successful, filled
more with punches absorbed rather than punches landed.
There is no scar tissue in Hopkins’ brow and his gait is
precise and sure-footed, far more like a dancer than a
brute.
The occasion that brings this luncheon to Todd English’
Tuscany is a press conference to announce an upcoming
bout that features Hopkins’ cousin, Willie Gibbs. The
undercard features promoter Rich Cappiello’s newly
signed prospect Elvin Ayala who is also present. It is
Ayala’s presence and the way Hopkins begins speaking to
the young man across the table immediately giving him
tips about lifestyle and training that first gets
Bernard Hopkins talking.
After the formalities of the press conference it is
Hopkins’ turn to speak again and once turned on there is
no turning off Bernard Hopkins. He is never at a loss
for words. And the words are never uninteresting or
uninspiring. He cut his teeth at Graterford State
Penitentiary; spending five years, his adolescence, 17
to 23, behind bars. It isn’t long before he references
his time there and what it taught him.
“So, I say again, I’m not that lucky. There’s a reason
why things happen in the life of Bernard Hopkins. And I
go back to this simple word…It’s a simple word…certain
educated people don’t have the common sense of realizing
that. Patience. How’d you get it, Bernard? I got it when
I was 17 years old. You think I didn’t think about
escaping? Some people hang themselves, some people went
crazy. Patience…You gotta understand, it takes patience
to be a young person in a situation where you can’t walk
out when you want…”
There is a man at the table, a friend of the promoter
who is also an ex-con, a man who Capiello reports as
having spent 34 years under lock and key. Hopkins turns
in the man’s direction, yielding a sort of instant
street cred to this unnamed man.
“I should shut up and let him talk,” says Hopkins. The
room fills with laughter but Hopkins is serious.
“’Cuz the bottom line is, we have a relationship. I
don’t know him, he don’t know me…Listen if I was saying
anything that wasn’t accurate he would have cut me off a
long time ago,” Hopkins smiles. Gesturing towards the
rear wall of the dining room and the numerous bottles
standing on the shelves, Hopkins gets everyone laughing
some more about the prospect of this hardened ex-con
using whatever he had to as a weapon.
“Because he’s got all these weapons here…these French
bottles of wine…He knows survival tactics,” Hopkins says
respectfully. And perhaps it is this that makes him
fundamentally different than his nemesis, Roy Jones Jr.
Roy knows it too, I think. Jones has always admired the
ferocious, the bloody thirsty, even though Roy’s boxing
skills were not born out of that same source material.
Why does Jones love the pit bulls and fighting roosters?
Not because of their careful business savvy or their
mastery of making an opponent miss, he admires their
willingness to blood themselves in their need to do harm
to the opposition. Hopkins was forged in the crucible of
prison where violence and brutality are instruments
through which one gains respect or keeps himself alive,
that world where men tie bed sheets round their necks to
choke off the pain of passing time.
When Hopkins talks of life of the sword and by the sword
there is no mistaking he knows his subject. He isn’t
ashamed to speak of his past transgressions or the time
he served; there is no embarrassment or showing off in
mentioning his incarceration.
“I don’t say it to brag or bullshit,” Hopkins says. And
no one doubts him.
The
mystic and the lunatic dwell in the same waters of the
mind. The lunatic is adrift in those tides, a startled
soul in a churning boil of water, struggling not to
sink. The mystic exists in that same foamy chop and roll
of water. The difference is that the mystic can swim.
Some see Hopkins as crazy, a paranoid who has made
choices against his own best interest out of hubris.
Others see Hopkins as a sort of guru, a man who has
improved with age in a sport that makes young men get
old too quickly. His training ethics are emulated and
his words are repeated like mantras by so many of
today’s fighters. Nate Campbell and Tarvis Simms, to
name two, both credited Hopkins with opening their eyes
to how to improve their training methods after recent
wins.
For writers, Hopkins is someone who keeps you
scribbling. He is easy to quote, his adeptness at
conversation as pronounced as the effectiveness of the
chopping uppercuts he lands when in close with an
opponent. It’s only natural to ask Hopkins for his
opinion of upcoming fights, especially when he has an
interest in the outcome and a potential date with the
victor.
“Tito late,” says Hopkins, when asked to tab the winner
of the upcoming Felix Trinidad versus Winky Wright
showdown. “Winky’s gonna put up a good scrap though…I
think that Winky will give him problems…being a
southpaw, but I think Winky will be too brave for his
own good. Winky will stay there and try to trade with
him and it’ll be exciting but Trinidad will get him. At
the end Trinidad will get him; overpower him. I think
with Winky, being too brave is gonna get him.”
If Hopkins is right, Trinidad’s victory over Wright
would clear a path for the rematch that for awhile at
least, looked as if it might never happen. I ask if
Hopkins thinks Trinidad wants to fight him again.
“I think Tito and his father want to fight me but I
think Don knows that he can’t beat me…But at the end of
the day Trinidad and his father, they call the shots. At
this stage of their career they’ve got Don over a
barrel.”
Hopkins spoke briefly during lunch about his deal with
His Royal Hairness and how it was necessary in order to
enter the Middleweight Tournament that culminated in
September of 2001 when Hopkins became the first
undisputed middleweight champ since Marvin Hagler by
beating Trinidad.
Don King had commissioned an artist to craft a trophy
for the victor of his Middleweight Tournament. The
trophy was shaped in the likeness of the greatest
middleweight, and arguably greatest fighter of all time,
Sugar Ray Robinson.
Hopkins describes the piece. “Ray Robinson like this,”
he poses, his guard up a-la-Ray Robinson. “Looks just
like him; the eyes are just,“ Hopkins traces his own eye
with two fingertips to denote the statue’s detail. “Oh,
it’s crazy! Oh this is a collector’s piece.”
I ask Hopkins if there is truth to the stories about the
Sugar Ray Robinson trophy being engraved with Trinidad’s
name even before the fight occurred. Hopkins describes
that yes, there was no trophy for him on the night he
beat Trinidad and he suggests he may know where the one
with Trinidad’s name on it resides.
“I go into Don King’s house in Fort Lauderdale…I’m in
his office about two summers ago, or last summer…there’s
a statue in Don’s house. Yo, you’re getting this on tape
ain’t you? Yo, man, I said [to myself] this is the Ray
Robinson trophy over there! I’m sure that that’s the
Tito trophy…I didn’t look at it. [But]I mean…you can’t
give the trophy to Tito because he didn’t win.”
Perhaps Don kept it as a trophy to remind him there are
few sure-things in boxing.
“You didn’t get the award?” Promoter Rich Cappiello
asks, having just joined the conversation.
“I got it,” says Hopkins. “I got it a week later…We had
a press conference, when they got it fixed and ready, at
Gallagher’s steak house with 8 media people. But there
was 2 and three hundred the night of the climax.”
“Let me tell you something, the night of the Super Bowl
the players are not looking for the rings right now,
they know that they’ll get the rings. You don’t hear no
players saying where’s my check? They’re running around
with that Lombardi trophy and if that’s what they only
got right then and there that was better than their ring
and their check that moment. Because that moment you can
never erase. They robbed me of the moment. They robbed
me of my moment. So, how do you take that negative
energy and let it work for you instead of against you? I
haven’t forgot it, I use it to put forward. And that’s
what’s got me here and that’s what’s gonna get me
through this next year.”
This year is likely all we have left to enjoy watching
this middleweight legend ply his trade in the squared
circle. It was a promise to his mother to retire at
forty and he’s stretched it a bit to forty-one which he
turns in January 2006. After that he’ll need to find new
dragons to slay and with his knowledge and interest in
so many aspects of the sport it is doubtful he’ll stray
very far from the ring.
Already this past January, Hopkins, Senator Jon McCain,
documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and several others
requested a Presidential pardon be issued for former
World Heavyweight Champion Jack Johnson. Johnson was
convicted under the Mann Act for transporting a woman
across state lines for immoral purposes; charges that
were pressed in order to bring down the first black
Heavyweight Champion. I ask Hopkins about the effort
behind the request for the pardon and what it means to
him.
“It’s a redemption of the injustice at the time. No
matter if you’ve been dead fifty years, twenty or thirty
years, I think when it comes to your name, that’s
important. That lives longer than you. Your name and
your credibility...I think no matter what religion or
color or anything…when things is done wrong to you it
could be fifty years or a hundred years and someone
stands up, politically or non-politically, and fights
for that cause…You know in the hood they got a saying,
that’s gangsta. You know the slang? That’s gangsta. And
that’s good…That means it’s bold. That means that
somebody stuck his neck out for it and then they pounded
the drums for it.”
Jack Johnson, like Hopkins, was never interested in
pleasing folks or appealing to the sensibilities of the
status quo. Hopkins admires that self-confidence and
depth of character in Johnson.
“He didn’t care…As I am today I can’t say I would be
like that back then. We’re talking nineteen fifteen…I
mean it was straight up red-necks…He was flamboyant.
He’d rub it in their face. Big hat! Jack Johnson was
that type of character. From what I read and
understand…Jack Johnson wasn’t no geek...He wasn’t shy.
And you could say that he shared his ding-a-ling.”
Everyone within earshot breaks into laughter and by now
I feel I am taking up too much of his time. I read the
body language of his entourage and sense that perhaps
the champ should get a move on. He has spoken for an
hour at least, through much of lunch, through a
videotaped interview and now with me. I imagine he has
talked enough, if that is even possible for this man
with so much to say and still so much greatness left in
him to prove.
I thank the Middleweight Champion for his time and for
signing a couple photos. We shake hands and of course,
Hopkins gets the last word. And of course it’s quotable,
like any writer would hope.
“I wanna see that on Doghouse,” says Hopkins. He turns
to a member of his entourage, smiles and nods in my
direction. “And he’s gonna have ding-a-ling on the
website.”
