Background and career
Bernard Hopkins Jr. (born January 15, 1965) is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2016. He is one of the most successful boxers of the past three decades, having held multiple world championships in two weight classes, including the undisputed championship at middleweight from 2001 to 2005, and the lineal championship at light heavyweight from 2011 to 2012. Hopkins first became a world champion by winning the vacant International Boxing Federation (IBF) middleweight title in 1995. He compiled 20 defenses against 17 opponents, with 19 wins as a result of his no-contest bout against Robert Allen. In 2001, Hopkins successfully unified the middleweight division by defeating Félix Trinidad to win the World Boxing Association (WBA) (Super version), World Boxing Council (WBC), Ring magazine and lineal titles. A victory over Oscar De La Hoya for the World Boxing Organization (WBO) title in 2004 cemented Hopkins' status as undisputed champion, while also making him the first male boxer to simultaneously hold world titles by all four major boxing sanctioning bodies. In 2001, Hopkins was voted Fighter of the Year by The Ring and the Boxing Writers Association of America. In 2011, The Ring ranked Hopkins as third on their list of the "10 best middleweight title holders of the last 50 years." As of April 2021, he is ranked by BoxRec as the seventh greatest boxer of all time, pound for pound. After losing the undisputed title to Jermain Taylor in 2005 and failing to regain it in a rematch the same year, Hopkins achieved further success in 2006 when he moved up to light heavyweight, winning the International Boxing Organization (IBO) and Ring titles from Antonio Tarver at 41 years of age. Two defenses of the Ring title were made before a loss to Joe Calzaghe in 2008. Three years later, Hopkins defeated Jean Pascal for the WBC and lineal light heavyweight titles, as well as regaining the Ring title. This made Hopkins the oldest boxer in history to win a world championship, at the age of 46, breaking George Foreman's record set in 1994. Hopkins later broke his own record by winning the IBF light heavyweight title from Tavoris Cloud in 2013, and again in 2014 when he won the WBA (Super) title from Beibut Shumenov, at ages 48 and 49, respectively. Nicknamed "The Executioner", and later "The Alien", Hopkins was known for his ability to continue competing at an advanced age. He is considered to be one of the greatest defensive boxers of all time. Hopkins was also known for his Philly Shell, carrying speed and power along with counterpunching skills, and defense. He was able to take advantage of a wide variety of situations in the ring and implement tactics while fighting on the inside or in a clinch. In the last years of his active career, Hopkins also became a minority partner with Golden Boy Promotions, with which he still remains post-career.
Born to Bernard Hopkins Sr. and his wife Shirley, Bernard grew up with his family in the Raymond Rosen housing project in Philadelphia. Although he was a promising amateur boxer who won the Philadelphia Jr. Golden Gloves championship at age 9, eventually compiling an amateur record of 95–4, Hopkins turned to crime early in his life. By the age of thirteen he was mugging people and had been stabbed three times. At seventeen, Hopkins was sentenced to 18 years in Graterford Prison for nine felonies. While in prison he witnessed the murder of another inmate in an argument over a pack of cigarettes, but also rediscovered his passion for boxing. After serving almost five years, Hopkins was released from prison in 1988. He then decided to use boxing as an escape from his previous life, and converted to Islam. While Hopkins was leaving the prison for the final time, the warden told him he'd "see [Hopkins] again when you wind up back in here", to which Hopkins replied "I ain't ever coming back here." Later, Hopkins attributed his personal discipline to his experiences and time spent in Graterford Prison.
Hopkins immediately joined the professional boxing ranks as a light heavyweight, losing his debut on October 11, 1988, in Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Clinton Mitchell. After a sixteen-month layoff, he resumed his career as a middleweight, winning a unanimous decision over Greg Paige at the Blue Horizon on February 22, 1990. Between February 1990 and December 1992, Hopkins scored 21 wins without a loss. He won 16 of those fights by knockout, 12 coming in the first round.
Hopkins met Roy Jones on May 22, 1993, for the vacant IBF middleweight title. Hopkins was out-pointed throughout most of the fight, en route to losing a unanimous decision. All three judges scored the fight 116–112 for Jones.
The IBF came again knocking at Hopkins's door on December 17 of that year, matching him with Segundo Mercado in Mercado's hometown of Quito, Ecuador. Mercado knocked Hopkins down twice before Hopkins rallied late and earned a split draw. It has been argued that Hopkins was also not properly acclimated to the altitude of nearly 10,000 feet. The IBF called for an immediate rematch, and on April 29, 1995, Hopkins became a world champion with a seventh-round technical knockout victory in Landover, Maryland. In his first title defense he defeated Steve Frank, whom he stopped in twenty-four seconds. By the end of 2000, he had defended the IBF title 12 times without a loss, while beating such standouts as John David Jackson, Glen Johnson (undefeated at the time), former champion Simon Brown, and knockout artist Antwun Echols.
The arrival of former welterweight and light middleweight champion Félix Trinidad into the middleweight ranks set off a series of unification fights between major middleweight title-holders. The boxers involved in the tournament were reigning IBF champion Bernard Hopkins, WBC champion Keith Holmes, WBA champion William Joppy, and Félix Trinidad.
