Bernard Hopkins: Is the executioner killing his own career?

By James McDonnell

19.06 - Bernard Hopkins. The executioner, even the name hints at some brooding malicious soul, an angry malevolent destroyer of men, and like his namesake, Hopkins has long been full of malice when it comes to boxing's financial hierarchy, and the sanctioning bodies that run it in collusion with those bigwigs.

Bernard Hopkins has often struck me as being the evil twin of Roy Jones Jr, a bit like the Halloween special episode of the Simpsons. Once, many years ago, Jones and Hopkins were on parallel courses, future stars in the making. Hopkins was on the verge of becoming middleweight champion, before a loss to Jones cast him into the dungeon of obscurity, from whence he railed and gnashed and wailed, chained by the fetters of indifference.

Unlike another of Jones' early victims, James Toney, Hopkins didn't allow his career to go into a tailspin, he became one of the longest reigning, but also most obscure middleweight champions in history, after gaining the title in 1994.

This wasn't really his fault. Following Hagler's loss to Leonard, and Leonard's subsequent retirement, the middleweight title belts were scattered, and as a consequence, middleweight title fights became of lesser significance. In fact, the titles were to remain scattered from 1987 when Leonard retired, until the middleweight tournament organised by Don King in 2001, which saw Hopkins upset the supposed heir to the undisputed middleweight crown, Felix Trinidad.

In that fight, Hopkins stunned most of the boxing world with a display of boxing ability that allowed him to dismantle Trinidad with consummate ease. Such was the gulf in ability between the two that it now seems incredulous that Tito, a fighter who had a single victory to his credit at middleweight, was ever considered favourite.

For Hopkins, it was as if a door opened on his prison, and he basked in the reflected light of a thousands pundits, who suddenly trumpeted him as the saviour of the middleweight division, and a champion for the ages. I was among those who were quick to lend a supporting line or two to Hopkins.

Hopkins was the hardworking everyman champion, the regular guy who had toiled in relative obscurity, and whose fierce independence, and refusal to sign his life away to boxing's big money men while big on personal dignity, was low on financial reward.

How long ago those days seem now. Since then, Hopkins has allowed his star to descend rapidly. Following his win over Trinidad, talk was rife of him facing Roy Jones in a rematch, and the stage seemed set for Hopkins to finally make some big money fights, at a very late stage in his career.

This fell through of course, with Hopkins demanding parity with Jones JR, which while in principle might seem fair, of course is not likely to happen. Jones offered Hopkins a 60-40 split, and a career high purse of $4M. Hopkins declined, and what happens instead, he fights unknown Carl Daniels, for a fraction of that sum.

Then Hopkins was offered a $10M four-fight deal with ShowTime, again, Hopkins declines, and what happens, he fights Morade Hakkar in a ludicrously sanctioned bout against a totally overmatched opponent for relative peanuts.

Then, following James Toney's impressive victory over Vassili Jirov, Hopkins shifts focus again, and decides that Toney could be an impressive cash cow. Amazingly, Hopkins was offered the better split of the two, as Toney capitulated to his demands, and Hopkins was to be the recipient of a $3M deal.

Comparing and contrasting Toney's and Hopkins' attitude is interesting. Toney has always been a name fighter, much more so than Hopkins, who even as champion couldn't have drawn a crowd of flies in his prime if he was smothered in jam. Toney was and remained a popular fighter, in large part due to his profile as a champ, when he tore through the middleweight ranks with alarming alacrity, before meeting with the brick wall that is Jones JR.

Following that defeat, Toney remained active, engaging in low profile bouts on the whole, and earning relatively meagre sums considering his former status. However, when the chance came to get a crack at Jirov, Toney re-motivated himself, and was prepared to accept terms to do so. Toney now seems intent on making good use of what little time he has left in his career to affect his legacy. Hopkins on the other hand has regressed to the status of an almost invisible fighter save for die-hard boxing fans, a sad state of affairs for a man who is the undisputed middleweight champion.

Now that he is big news again, Toney was willing to concede to Hopkins' demands, to ensure the fight got made, and what's happened, Toney is now having to look to the challenge of O'Neill Bell, in order to get a fight in the near future, and now Hopkins is calling out Ottke.

It's hard to envisage the fight with Ottke getting made. Ottke doesn't fight outside of Germany, and the only time Hopkins fought outside the states, was for the vacant title shot against Segundo Mercado in Ecuador. Hopkins seems almost certain to make some kind of unreasonable demand that will prevent this fight being made.

Hopkins is suffering from years of his own perception of his career being confined and incarcerated by outside forces, like a fistic equivalent of Nelson Mandela, he bore out his lack of attention with formidable willpower, and refusal to capitulate to the outside demands and influences. After so
many years of trying to escape his prison, he finds himself unable to adjust to that open door, and is gradually walling himself back in, brick by brick. Each fight that is mentioned as a possible match-up, falls through for the same reasons, Hopkins thinks he should be treated like a superstar.

There are very few boxing superstars, and it's not necessarily, in fact it's rarely to do with ability. De La Hoya could draw a crown to hear him play the Stars and Stripes by breaking wind, whereas Shane Mosley only made big money when he fought Oscar. The same is even true of Lennox Lewis, whose
fight with Kirk Johnson wouldn't even have made PPV, after Tyson jumped ship from the fight card to fight elsewhere.

Max Kellerman said something along those lines; that he thought that Hopkins was finding it hard adjusting to being on the inside looking out, rather than the outside looking in, and now that he finally had his chance to call the shots, he was making too much use of that privilege.

The solution to me seems to be that Hopkins should simply fight the remaining perceived threats in his division. Joppy would make for an interesting if not thrilling fight. He is an underrated fighter who made one big mistake against Trinidad, swapping power shots with a man he mistakenly thought he could match for strength. Howard Eastman, from the UK would also make for a good fight, and is a colourful opponent who might aid Hopkins in drawing a crowd.

For all of Hopkins' achievements, for all his title defences, the fact of the matter is, the average sports fan doesn't know who the hell he is, and doesn't really care about his points of principle.

Hopkins doesn't have much time left in which to execute whatever gameplan he might have, and chasing unreasonable purses at anywhere from super middleweight to cruiserweight doesn't seem the right way to go about it.

Ultimately, for all his railing against 'the system' and 'the man' who has dogged his career, it is his own career Hopkins is hurting, and there isn't a lot anyone else can do to decide what happens in the remaining few fights he has left.

Hopkins is the captain of his own ship, and while he may rightly take the praise for his achievements, he must also accept responsibility if his ship sinks unnoticed and without trace.