A fistfight between a 40-year-old man and a 26-year-old opponent hardly seems fair. Bernard Hopkins, the old guy, agrees. He doesn't think Jermain Taylor has a chance in their middleweight title bout.
Hopkins makes his record 21st straight defense of the middleweight title Saturday night against Taylor, who has worked his way from Olympic bronze medal in 2000 to a 23-0 professional record with 17 knockouts. As a measure of how long Hopkins has been at the fight game, Taylor was 13 when Hopkins won his first title of any kind. Indeed, Hopkins' resume had 35 bouts on it by then.
So the way the champion from Philadelphia sees it, everything favors him to continue a streak his promoter -- and one of his victims in the ring, Oscar De La Hoya -- calls "something that will never happen again."
PHOTO: AP
"If you look at me as just an athlete and what I have accomplished, you would be a fool not to respect me," Hopkins said on Wednesday.
"People talk boxing. I live boxing. This is an edge I have that Jermain Taylor has not experienced. If you don't believe that, I can't sell you nothing," he said.
What Hopkins is always selling is himself. Since getting out of prison in 1988 after serving nearly six years for armed robbery, he's been trying to prove his worth. Even though his overall record of 46-2 with one draw -- including a loss in his first fight -- is one of the best in boxing history, he still claims there are doubters.
Hopkins targets them as much as he does his opponents in the ring.
"I'm going to continue to do it as an athlete in the ring so when I leave the ring [next year,] I'll still be the best," he said.
Taylor clearly realizes this is the biggest battle of his boxing career. Bigger than the Olympics.
"Back then, I had the whole Olympic team with me. We were just a bunch of kids out there to have fun. This is different, the culmination of a dream, why I got into boxing," he said.
"I've been waiting a long time for this. It's what I want," Taylor said.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB