October 17, 2011
BERNARD HOPKINS: THE EXECUTIONER OF COWARDICE
By Darrell La Montre
A cynic's opinion
Bernard Hopkins (52-6-2 32 knockouts) is a boxing legend. What he has accomplished before and after the age of forty is truly amazing and warrants respect. His mental discipline and ability to endure imprisonment and not only avoid returning to jail, but to carve out a place in boxing history is something to be greatly admired. His ring IQ is at genius level and his legacy is fully secure. Now that I have gotten that out of the way, prior to his fight with Chad Dawson (31-1 18 KOs) last weekend, I held the opinion that Hopkins had the greatest post-forty career in boxing history. I no longer believe that to be true. That title reverts back to Archie Moore, who would never have done the things that Hopkins did leading up to, and including, Saturday's fight with Dawson. There have been too many incidents where Hopkins, himself a notoriously dirty fighter, has committed fouls (often when the referee isn’t looking which shows calculation and premeditation) and either his opponent doesn’t retaliate, or does retaliate (Roy Jones Jr. for example), only to have Hopkins overreact, exaggerate, and transform from perpetrator to victim in a heartbeat.
This quality of his has always rubbed me the wrong way and quite frankly makes me very angry. If there is one thing I can’t stomach, it’s a bullies and cowards who are one in the same. Bernard Hopkins is simultaneously a coward and a bully. He preys on the weak (or in the case with Dawson, the perceived weak) and either succeeds in bullying and intimidating them before and during the fight, or discovers that he won’t be able to succeed with these tactics and resorts to histrionics by playing the victim and looking for a clever way out.
Roy Jones accurately characterized Hopkins as a “bottom feeder” leading up to their rematch last year. If the coward side of Hopkins were not fraught with fear and truly believed he could avenge the 1993 defeat Jones gave him, he would have rematched Jones when Jones was at or even near his prime. Instead, Hopkins waited until Jones's blazing speed had slowed with age, and agreed to the rematch only after Jones was knocked out three times and lost five of his previous nine fights.
The bully in Hopkins appeared in his racist rant leading up to the Joe Calzaghe fight when Hopkins declared that he would “never lose to a white boy”. He told Calzaghe that he had feasted on soft European fighters and attempted to convince Calzaghe that he wasn’t good enough or tough enough to deal with a black American/ex-convict. During the fight, he realized that Calzaghe was a pretty damn good fighter for a white boy. Hopkins was having problems keeping up with the pace, so in the tenth round what did the tough ex-con do when the going got tough? Did he bite down and fight through the fatigue like Muhammad Ali used to do? No, he found an opportunity to buy time with a horrible acting performance that only referee Joe Cortez found convincing. If you watch the replay, you will see Calzaghe’s punch actually banked off Hopkins' glove before literally tapping Hopkins’ cup. I’ve boxed at the amateur level, and there is no way in hell Hopkins even felt that punch, let alone was debilitated by it!
Bullies and cowards are fraught with insecurity and the root of insecurity is fear. Fear is often used as a tool and can be very effective against others with equal or more fear, but is rendered ineffective when used against others with far less fear. People who are fraught with fear are often liars as well. If you think about it, the root of a lie is fear. People lie because they fear the consequences of telling the truth. One lie begets another. Keep all of this in mind as you think about Hopkins’ actions and statements before, during and after many of his fights including the one with Dawson. As I previously stated on this website, I believe that Hopkins didn’t want to fight Dawson two to three years ago any more than he wanted to fight Roy Jones Jr. back in 2001 when he demanded a 50/50 purse split against Jones, who already defeated him and was by far the bigger draw.
I also don’t believe Hopkins wanted to fight Dawson this time. As Stephen “Breadman” Edwards accurately pointed out before the fight, Hopkins had to agree to face Dawson as a condition of getting a rematch with Jean Pascal because Dawson was next in line to face Pascal for the title. Hopkins signed on to fight Dawson rather than give up the title because he believed that he now had a better chance of beating Dawson after seeing him lose Pascal, a man that he arguably defeated twice (and officially went 1-0-1 against). Hopkins believed Dawson did not have the mental strength and/or confidence to defeat Hopkins and because of that was deemed less dangerous than he compared to before Dawson lost to Pascal, when Dawson was a more confident, undefeated world champion.
After the first round in which Hopkins tried to intimidate Dawson and gain a psychological edge by bullying him against the ropes and through overall body language, I believe Hopkins realized he was in for a long night against a much younger, athletically superior fighter who had trained extremely hard and was hungry to regain his title. In the second round, Hopkins missed a right hand and ended up draped over Dawson’s back after appearing to semi-leap onto it. Dawson, who wanted to show Hopkins that he was no punk and would not be bullied or rough-housed, shrugged him off and Hopkins landed on his ass, which apparently is connected to his shoulder. Did the tough ex-con “gangsta” Hopkins immediately rise to his feet and look to continue fighting and defeat the “mentally weak”, “non-gangsta” Dawson? No, he remained on his ass (the only thing that could possibly have been sore) and resorted to his usual attempt to con everyone into believing that he was in agonizing pain. I truly believe Hopkins thought the referee would call Dawson's action a foul and that either Dawson would be disqualified because Hopkins couldn’t continue, or it would at least be ruled a no contest.
Whether the referee made a mistake or not by ruling it a non-foul, and therefore a technical knockout win for Dawson, is not the point. The point is that Hopkins was mindful of all of this and did what cowards do: he looked for a way out. There is now a report released by Hopkins stating that Hopkins suffered a separation of his shoulder and collarbone. Hopkins is claiming that he pleaded with the referee to be able to continue fighting and that he claimed he could continue fighting with one arm. I find all of that extremely difficult to believe considering Hopkins’ disposition and personality. If Hopkins was in that much pain with his adrenaline pumping during the fight, why was he able to conduct an interview with no sign of being in pain and simply having an ice pack applied to his shoulder?
Let’s assume that the injury was legitimate. Why didn't he try to fight through it? Arturo Gatti suffered a fractured hand in his third fight with Mickey Ward, and not only fought ten rounds, but punched with the broken hand! Muhammad Ali suffered a broken jaw against Ken Norton and fought almost all of the fifteen rounds in agonizing pain. A shot Mike Tyson, who few have accused of being a mentally tough fighter, suffered a torn meniscus against Danny Williams and continued fighting through the pain and didn’t even tell his trainer in between rounds about it. Yuri Foreman fought Miguel Cotto for a round with an injured leg that later required surgery. Evander Holyfield had part of his ear bitten off by Mike Tyson and rather than use that as an excuse to quit the way Hopkins would have, told his trainer to put his mouthpiece back “I’m gonna knock him out!” Arthur Abraham defearted Edison Miranda with a broken jaw. That’s how “gangstas” behave.
The legendary late great Cus D’Amato famously said the following: “the hero and the coward both feel the same thing, but the hero uses his fear, projects it onto his opponent, while the coward runs. It's the same thing, fear, but it's what you do with it that matters." Cus died before Bernard turned pro, but I’m pretty sure if he lived long enough to have seen him fight he would not have characterized him as a “hero”. Hopkins deserves the same amount of credit that all professional fighters deserve for stepping into the ring. Boxing is a very dangerous sport as we all know. Relative to the aforementioned fighters, however, he is far from a hero, very far from a gangsta, and very much a coward.
