By RMC: When IBF/WBA light heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins gets in that ring on November 8th we’ll be seeing history in the making in his unification match against WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev. Hopkins is almost a half of a century years old and still at the top of the game. He said once that he wants to unify the whole light heavyweight division, and for the record, he is not too far from that.
Hopkins has the IBF and WBA titles in his possession, and on November 8th, he will be facing the hard-hitter Sergey Kovalev (25-0-1, 23 KO) and challenging him for his WBO belt. So that night we are going to have on the line three of the four titles in the light heavyweight division up for grabs.
Maybe it is true that Hopkins style is not that exciting, and it is also true that he has more brains and guts than skills. Not to mention that he hasn’t scored a knockout since since 2004 (Oscar de la Hoya), although he had Beibut Shumenov in the canvas in the 11th round this past April. Nevertheless, we can’t forget that for some people he could be “an old man.” I mean, he’s almost 50 years old and still fighting, still champion, and still facing the best of the division, and what’s more important: still hungry. He said he wants to unify the whole division, and he has two fights to achieve it.
One of them we have it next month, and the other one will be against the WBC light heavyweight champ Adonis Stevenson (24-1, 20 KO). Called Superman, Stevenson, after beating Chad Dawson in an extraordinary one-round-KO in 2013, went after Tavoris Cloud, defeating him in 7 rounds. But, and always presuming that Hopkins would pass his test against Kovalev, we will have to wait till 2015 to watch history happens. Hopkins will be 50 years old, and be fighting for and unprecedented 4 titles, the real deal.
You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.
This three guys – Hopkins, Kovalev, Stevenson– are certainly the real deal of the division; they all say they want to fight each other, they all say they want to make history. But only one can be The One.
Can Kovalev’s heavy hands stop Hopkins? Hard to say. Hopkins knows the sport like no one at this point. In brains we can say he is the Floyd Mayweather Jr. of the light heavyweight division. He can move and clinch a lot, and knows when to chill the fight, and when to accelerate. The odds always say the same thing, “can Hopkins also beat Father Time that night in the ring or years caught him?”
Bernard Hopkins said once: I’m at my best when I know I’ve got to beat the system again.
To B-HOP (Be Hope), or not to be: that is the question.
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