Bernard Hopkins walked into a press conference on Wednesday wearing a black hoodie with dark shades and a black mask covering the lower half of his face. He was playing to his nickname, the Executioner, though he looked more like a poor man’s ninja.
“I got the Executioner back,” his trainer, Naazim Richardson, said of his pupil. Hopkins didn’t take any questions and left the premises not to be seen until tonight, when he challenges Tavoris Cloud for his IBF light heavyweight championship at the Barclays Center. HBO will televise the bout.
It was the latest in a career filled with acts of psychological warfare, at least that’s how the Philadelphia native views it. At age 48, Hopkins has a deep well of tricks he can use in the hope of unnerving an opponent. It makes for good theater.
Just don’t say it’s all mind games. Hopkins is getting sensitive about that.
“They make it sound like mentally he’s beaten all these people,” Richardson said. “I watch him throw right hands and left hooks to beat these people. The man can fight. He’s not gotten in anybody’s head. It’s not mental games. It’s not smoke ’n mirrors. The man can fight.”
We will see if he still can fight tonight against Cloud, who at age 30 is making the fifth defense of his title, which he has held since 2009. Unbeaten in 24 pro bouts with 19 knockouts, Cloud, a native of Tallahassee, Fla., needs a signature win to gain the notoriety he craves.
“After I beat him, hopefully these other guys in the light heavyweight division will step up and we can start fighting,” Cloud said.
Hopkins (52-6-2, 32 KOs) is looking to carve another notch on his legacy. A win would add two more years to the record he currently holds as the oldest boxer to win a world championship title. He first did that in 2011 when he defeated Jean Pascal in Canada. He has since met Chad Dawson twice. The first fight ended in a no-contest after Hopkins hurt his shoulder in a second-round fall. Dawson won the second fight by majority decision, with two judges scoring it 117-111 for Dawson and the other a 114-114 draw.
Hopkins said the shoulder he injured in his fall in Dawson-Hopkins I hampered his performance in Dawson-Hopkins II. But he said, he’s “100 percent” healthy now, and if he doesn’t look good against Cloud, his run of big fights in a Hall-of-Fame-worthy career might be over. It would be hard for the HBO and Showtime to justify putting him on a major card when it’s difficult to find dates for the up-and-coming boxers that need the spotlight.
Yet, Hopkins is to be admired for staying relevant this long.
“His name recognition is tremendous,” said Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy Promotions. “You ask anyone on the streets, they know who Bernard Hopkins is. Other fighters haven’t earned that legendary status. So when he fights the world watches.”
That’s what HBO is hoping. The network still is stinging from losing Floyd Mayweather to Showtime. With Manny Pacquiao having been face-planted against Juan Manuel Marquez, there are few viable pay-per-view bouts on the horizon.
Cloud said he hopes to work his way into the pay-per-view conversation and could do it by beating up an old man. No one has hurt Hopkins, a secret to his longevity.
“I’ve just got to go in there and fight my fight and make him do what I want him to do inside of the ring,” said Cloud, coming off a split-decision win over Gabriel Campillo last February.
Cloud, who fought just twice the previous two years, was too much of a stationary target in his last bout and will have to be more aggressive against Hopkins, who loves to dictate the pace.
PREDICTION: Cloud by decision, barely.