Bernard Hopkins talks on Oscar, Fight Plan, being Stabbed and time spent in Prison
 Media Report (September 14, 2004)
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'I'm the one who has got everything on the line. If I lose, nobody is going
to be giving Bernard Hopkins a rematch ... . I'm taking on Oscar, the ref,
the judges, everyone,' he says.
NEW YORK, Sept. 14 -- In the October 2004 issue of GQ, writer Stephen Rodrick interviews eight-time felon and outspoken boxing reformer Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins, who has worn the middleweight-champion belt for nine years and on September 18 will make $10 million for fighting Oscar De La Hoya in what could be the richest non-heavyweight bout in boxing history.
If Hopkins loses against De La Hoya, he gives up his champion belts and perhaps even his career, reports Rodrick. "I'm the one who has got everything on the line. If I lose, nobody is going to be giving Bernard Hopkins a rematch," says Hopkins. "I'm in the ring by myself. I'm taking on Oscar, the ref, the judges, everyone."
In a sport where chaos reigns and promoters call the shots, Hopkins has made a career of bucking the system, reports Rodrick, and he rails against the jackals in the fight game. "Where else do you get your brains beat out and then they want you to do an interview in the ring?" says Hopkins, who has defended his title a record 18 times. "I mean, I may have brain damage, swelling in my head, so let me get that taken care of; then I'll talk all night."
Hopkins, who has been married for 12 years and has a five year-old daughter, lives in a Philadelphia penthouse that overlooks the juvenile- detention facility where he was a frequent guest by the age of 13. "I didn't rob the guys in the high-water pants, the Urkels," says Hopkins of his youth in North Philadelphia. "I went after the dealers, the hustlers, the gamblers. I didn't think they would call the police and they had the money."
By 17, Hopkins had been stabbed twice and in 1982 he was picked up for robbing a dice game and charged as an adult. "Prison was a blessing," says Hopkins. "Sometimes I wonder why I'm alive. If I'd stayed out there, I would have been killed."
Hopkins went pro in 1988, a year after he was released from prison, and in 1995 won a share of the middleweight title. For years he refused to sign a contract with promoter Don King, a deal that would have allowed him to fight for larger purses but would have made him King's pawn, reports Rodrick. "To get something, you've got to give something -- that's wrong," says Hopkins. "I'm trying to build a legacy; I want to be remembered like an Ali, as someone more than an athlete, who made things better for his sport."
Hopkins tells Rodrick that he sees the De La Hoya fight as an answer to all his critics, everyone who has questioned his professional sanity. "People called me a fool," says Hopkins. "But I was just a modern-day Noah, building my ark. And guess what? It's raining now."
Rodrick's article appears in the October 2004 issue of GQ, on newsstands nationwide Tuesday, September 28, 2004. GQ is the leading men's general- interest magazine and part of Conde Nast Publications, Inc.
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