AIR DATE:
EPISODE: Episode 20
Bernard Humphrey Hopkins Jr. is an American former professional boxer who competed from 1988 to 2016.
Transcribed:
Hello boxing fans around the world.
Thank you once again for joining us for another episode of the scoop on talk and fight with the champ bowl array, ebola ray’s got someone excited to talk about tonight, one of our favorites burn of hopkins.
What do you have to say about him, young man well, um? Well, for the most part, um a great deal of people uh feel that marvin marvelous marvin hagler was the epitome of a champion, especially when it comes to the middleweight division for the longest time.
I was one of those people now um finishing his career, with a staggering 62 wins and three losses with two draws, not to mention of those 62 wins 52 were done by stoppages, um yeah.
This is genuinely what legends are made of and to me he was the greatest um middleweight of all times and for the record he beat leonard in that final fight, but that’s another one.
That’S another story: um and then comes the class of 88 us olympic squad and the silver medalist, a silver medalist from the 88 games, which was one of the greatest robberies in amateur boxing.
History first and foremost turns pro and came in the professional scene and literally tore things up.
Roy jones jr was to me that much better than marvin hagler, the greatest in that in the weight class, and there it was.
The torch was passed when i speak of roy jones accomplishments.
I speak.
I only speak of prior to his second contest with antonio tarver, because that’s when he was great to be the best, one must beat the best and even stopping them is awe-inspiring.
This is what the man did regularly.
This is what he is known for.
He destroyed great.
That’S why i have him so high.
The amount of legends, not even champions that roy beat and even stopped, is awe-inspiring and leads me to conclude that he is the greatest middleweight super middleweight and light heavyweight and light heavyweight of all time.
This week, i’m dedicated to showing showcasing um the victories that roy accumulated during his illustrious career when he was great.
So with that today, i’m showcasing the career of an utter legend, and i challenge anybody to argue that during his professional career, which spanned over four decades, he amassed a record of 55 wins with eight losses in two draws now, after winning the first world title, he Went on to defend it and picked a few more straps along the way, a record of 19 times without a defeat which was a record at the time.
One of the most creative fighters that has ever come along, especially in that era and still has been compared to the current grace in fantasy boxing competitions.
He has a tko win, tko victory over the only person and on the only person to ever do this over oscar de la hoya and felix trinidad.
He took on all comers and with the exception of his brother-in-law um, with the exception of his brother jermaine taylor.
Actually jermaine taylor and chad dawson, no one has ever had his number now with that being said, my name is bala raymond ulubuwali, and this is the scoop born january 15, 1965 in philadelphia, pennsylvania and grew up in the raymond.
Rosen housing projects in the same city was the future hall of famer the alien, the executioner, biha bernard humphrey, hopkins jr young bernard took to a life of crime really early and by the age of 13.
He was wow straight up, mugging people and he had been stabbed three times, wow, no surprise um with that direction.
By 17 years of age he was sentenced to um gratterford prison for 18 years for nine felonies.
I’M 17 he’s sent to prison for 18 years.
Wow wow anyways.
It was there that he um that young bernard found his passion for the support of boxing, because in the states they have not just boxing facilities, but amateur boxing competitions in penitentiaries hawkins amateur record in prison is unknown to me, for i couldn’t find anywhere, but it Is totally that he was very, he had a very good one, which resulted in after his release from prison, which was five years um.
He immediately resumed his boxing as a means to escape the temptation of recidivism, putting him right back where he was so october.
11Th.
1988 hopkins stepped into the squared circle for the first time as a professional now, in the light heavyweight division, all right uh if to face off against one clinton mitchell.
Now this turns out this didn’t turn out to be his day as they both were making their debut.
But clinton was the one smiling after the contest that was ruled just a majority decision post.
This fight hopkins took a 16 month break from the ring and asked himself do i really want to be a boxer? The answer was an astounding, yes, and the rest is history.
So hawkins made some changes to um to himself going into the second fight.
Almost notably, he dropped two weight classes, all right and went united super sorry, one-way class.
He went in a super middle um february.
22Nd 1990 marked his return to the ring where he beat greg page all right um.
This was just the beginning.
He went on to tear on a tear where he won his next 22 straight fights without a loss 16 by naco 12 of those knockouts in the first round hopkins i’ve never known hawkins to be a puncher first round, knockout after first round knockout after first time.
Okay, may 22nd 1993 marked his first showdown between these two greats bernard and roy.
This was for the ibf middleweight strap, which was currently vacant at the time.
Roy completely completely outboxed bernard, like he was standing still um.
His footwork was something that bernard hadn’t confronted yet and he went to school with him all day.
B-Hop lost a unanimous decision with all three uh judges scoring the fight in favor of roy by a score of eight rounds to four or 116 to 112.
.
It was, it was, it was it was.
It was a clinic, nothing shy of a clinic.
Now bihar goes off and dusts himself off, thankfully, and went on to do what he does and puts together a nice little win streak of four fights.
Then fortune fell right into his lap via roy went vacated the ibf middleweight title to go up to uh and won the ibf super middleweight title against james tony.
So, with the middleweight title being vacant um november 18, 1994 b-hop ranked number one um fighter in the india in that system.
In uh the ibf he was given a fight against segundo mercado the number two seed december 17th.
They square off in a questionable fight by many, but not for the reasons that one might think the fight was judged a draw.
But during the course of the contest b-hop knocked uh b-hop was knocked down twice.
That’S a lot to catch up on, even though he had the two ten eight rounds.
Apparently, he did more than enough to win the hearts of the um, the likes of bobby sheds, uh, the legendary uh light heavyweight former champion and whatnot, who was doing color commentary there.
An immediate rematch was ordered in april 29th.
1995.
It happened this time.
It was a clinic where bhop won via a seventh round stoppage, but noteworthy two judges had b-hop losing just one round at the time of the stoppage like, i said it was an absolute clinic um.
He wanted that.
He wanted that win.
That from here, b-hop went on to be one of the most winningest middleweights to date, 19 straight fights with only one no contest due to being at to to him to b-hop being accidentally pushed out of the ring by the legendary ref mills lane.
What a streak at he has a win over future uh hall of famer glenn johnson, who um uh, which was the first of two defeats he had by stoppage.
He oscar doyle, oscar de la hoya, by stoppage, which was for the record the very first time that um the two losses via stop the very first time that he had stoppage via the two losses in his career.
Um bihar made the very first uh fighter ever in any weight class to be the unified champion of all four major sanctioning bodies in that fight with de la hoya, felix trinidad was um.
He beat philip’s trinidad by stoppage people and he was the first one to make him look mortal the only one to do this when he was still in his prime honestly who, on god’s green earth, can make compost.
You stopped de la hoya and felix trent felix trinidad.
If you know boxing, he stopped felix trinidad that sensation.
That was his first loss.
That’S incredible! B-Hop at the time is 41 years of age or sorry.
Um two fights after de la hoya b-hop is uh staring across the ring from his actual brother-in-law, jimmy jermaine taylor, which was a close fought contest, but wasn’t his day losing by split decision.
A rematch is then immediately issued where, after where jermaine wins again via a unanimous decision.
This time he just had his number, but i guess it’s better to lose to family than anybody else.
B.
Hop is now 41 years of age, and the boxing world is saying that he’s done.
He just lost twice to his cousin, his brother-in-law.
So what do you? What would the average person do retire? Be huck is not the average person by a long shot.
He moves up two weight classes because that’s what he does um to me.
Arguably, the greatest fighter of the time who has just dethroned spectacularly the pound-for-pound king roy jones, jr b-hop, was a three-to-one underdog going into the fight and wanting unanimous decision against tarver antonio turbo.
For good measure b, hop picked up an additional 250 k.
I love this picked up with the extra 250k for his troubles due to beating it um, due to a bet that he had with tarver.
That tarver would not knock him out by the sixth round.
Oh add insult to injury: oh my god um! He continues on with his career, but ran into well none other than joe kawazaki for all of his lightweight light heavyweight straps.
Even though b hop started out well with the first uh with the first round knock down and then um, he continued on dominating for up to the fifth round pretty much.
But then joe [ Music ] switched gears.
He is a legend in his own right, switched gears and put on an absolute spectacle where he relied on fast, punches, fast, punches and footwork sorry and punch volume and punch volume and one a close decision, but still won the the latter part of the um.
The fight he snuck out a split decision like honestly it was.
It was impressive to see and b-hawk didn’t, have an answer for these yeah.
They weren’t hard punches, but he boxed him via just hand speed.
It was it’s one for the books genuinely like teach children.
This there, but after this fight there still was no quit in a man like he continues on his career and has more notable wins like his fight against the grey ghost kelly pavlick and his rematch against roy jones jr.
But this is an uh, a completely aged roy who yeah um.
These wins gave him an opportunity to fight for a world title once again against our canadian boy.
My friend jean pascal, now in their first dance, b-hop, had to settle for a majority draw, but he was not to be denied in the rematch and walked away from um walked away with a unanimous decision what a career, and yet it’s not over.
It’S still not over two fights later he loses to chad, dawson and all his titles go with him only to win the ibf title against traverse cloud in the next fight and he’s back in the race.
He then amasses the ibf iba and the wba super um super heavyweight titles against oh wow.
Let’S just say he wanted only to lose everything against the man, sergey kovalev, the very next fight.
His next fight was one month before his 52nd birthday.
He loses to one joe smith jr, but what made this loss even more notable is that it was the very first time that bihar in his 67th fight career was stopped, and then he packed it in what a career.
What an absolute ridiculous fantasy career.
Because of this man and many others that, in my opinion, roy jones jr is the greatest middleweight of all time.
Roy has a win over this man when they were both great.
He was a class above when they were both great.
It’S going to be a very long time before we see another person who could take, who can fill those shoes and actually surpass roy as far as i’m concerned, but here’s hoping so with that.
That’S my show if you like this episode, please hit the like button and subscribe and don’t forget to hit the notification bell.
It’S your boy baller and that’s a scooper, quick question: did our boy bhop make any money astronomical amongst money? Oh yeah astronomical four or five-time world champion.
No, he 19 times put it this way, even if he was to make one million dollars which he didn’t, but even if he was to make one million dollars for every fight for all those fights that um during his 19 fight uh win streak, that’s 19 million, But when he fought de la hoya, the golden one, i think he made 30 million.
Oh yeah.
He stopped him when he fought uh felix trinidad again.
He i think he made something like 20 1 million like he made.
He did very well he’s living very well.
It’S a name.
You don’t often hear when it comes to money makers out there.
You know he must have a really low profile, because these days, i’m hearing roy jones jr ringside an awful lot because he’s doing an awful lot of coaching right but bernard hopkins.
I haven’t heard much of so i thought maybe he just faded away, but i guess he’s faded away to his mansion in bahamas or something wow.
I mean um bihar, actually roy too um.
These guys were the the consummate athlete roy.
Our b-hop would have a fight and the next day he would run 10 miles, he’d be back into training the very next day, maintaining his fitness level when he was in his 40s um.
He he’d boast about how he’s trained, with 20 year olds like run against and beat 20 year old um.
He was in phenomenal shape always and he treat his body like a temple.
He didn’t party, you have other fighters, there’s james tony, who is another legend, a complete another legend but um different mindset.
He would balloon up there’s stories of him going up as heavy as 40 pounds and then having to shed um to make weight and then, by the end he just stopped caring about making weight, he’s short and he wasn’t heavyweight.
He was successful.
Most people aren’t well when we look up the word, legendary in the dictionary we’ll find bernard hopkins by all means.
Yeah.
That’S that’s a great story.
I i didn’t realize his early career was spent behind bars either.
That’S something i was doing here.
Often wow.
That’S the school of hard knocks for you genuinely genuinely for sure right.
Thanks very much.
I appreciate that very that’s a once again a very insightful look at uh someone who’s still with us.
I i believe, he’s still with us and they’re enjoying life and what a great career.
Indeed i had no idea it was that illustrious uh, you hear the name, but you don’t recognize when you put those building blocks together.
Well, what a house that guy built all the good good story – great story, great career, yeah, good stuff, yeah! All right, we’ll see you tomorrow and and you’ve got a week of men who beat roy jones or men who were beaten by roy jones men that roy jones beat.
That makes him the greatest middleweight of all time.
Okay got it all right! I look forward to tomorrow night’s episode then thank you, cheers
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