LAS VEGAS - It's easy to imagine someone as patient and precise as Bernard Hopkins
putting those traits to good use in a profession outside of boxing.The same steady hands that have been so effective when balled into fists might have made Hopkins the maker of fine Swiss time pieces, or maybe a cutter of diamonds and other precious stones. In his leisure time, the man known as "The Executioner" probably would be a whiz at painstakingly assembling miniature sailing ships inside a bottle or piecing together giant, 10,000-piece jigsaw puzzles.
In the ring, Hopkins long has been a proponent of the adage that haste makes waste. And why not? At 45, he never has been stopped, cut or even taken a serious beating. His impenetrable defense is on a par with that of the 1985 Chicago Bears, and his attention to detail has allowed him to systematically break down opponents bit by bit instead of going for the big hit, which really isn't his game in any case.
"You have to know your craft in this sport," Hopkins' trainer, Brother Naazim Richardson, said of his fighter's death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach. "Bernard is a wrecking machine. Bernard is not a knockout puncher who gets you in one shot. Bernard ruins guys, but he takes his time doing it."
It is that Bernard Hopkins (50-5-1, 32 KOs), the one who dispassionately goes about his business with laser-beam focus, who is a 4-1 favorite over the faded Roy Jones Jr. (54-6, 40 KOs) tomorrow night in their pay-per-view rematch here at the Mandalay Bay Events Center. But that might not be the Hopkins who answers the opening bell.
Seventeen years after he lost a unanimous decision to Jones, on May 22, 1993, Hopkins is older, wiser and maybe even better than he was that night in RFK Stadium. He was the ex-convict from North Philadelphia, who was a 28-year-old ring neophyte and possibly intimidated by Jones, the 1988 Olympic hero, and the fact he was appearing in his first title bout and on the sort of big stage he never had been afforded.
Hopkins-Jones II had since been proposed more often than marriage offers to Elizabeth Taylor and always, until now, the more ardent suitor, Hopkins, was left with a bouquet of wilted roses and broken promises. By and by, Jones became an object of Hopkins' frustration and, eventually, hatred.
It is that seething desire to pummel and destroy Jones, as the young Mike Tyson used to pummel and destroy a succession of terrified victims, that perhaps offers Jones his best chance for avoiding such a thrashing, and maybe even to pull off an upset.
"I want Roy to be able to remember this beating I am about to give him for making me wait so long," Hopkins said, the contempt in his voice palpable and, this time, not just a gimmick to boost PPV sales. "It's all about healing a 17-year wound.
"Now that the wait is over, I am going old school and back to the days of 'The Executioner.' The governor has spoken and April 3 will be Roy's last day. I want to punish and destroy Roy Jones Jr. for good."
The fact that there is a 10 percent bonus kicker in the contract - the purse split purportedly is 50-50, although a knockout or stoppage would increase the winner's take-home - also might have Hopkins fighting out of character. The last time B-Hop won a bout inside the distance was on Sept. 18, 2004, when he put Oscar De La Hoya down and out with a left hook to the liver. That makes it eight fights spread over 5 1/2 years for Hopkins since there was no need to go to the scorecards.
Jones is steadfast in his pronouncements that he was a better fighter than Hopkins in 1993, he's better now and will always be.
"He tried everything and none of it worked," Jones said in recalling his first go-round with Hopkins. "He couldn't get away from my jab. This time, he'll be a little different, a little smarter. He's not the risk-taker he used to be. He wants to lay it all on the line now."
In a psychological battle of guys who are used to getting under an opponent's skin, Jones has taken a double-dare-you tact and asserted that it was Hopkins, not he, who prevented the rematch from happening for so long.
"I can't blame that man for not wanting to fight me until he thought my career was over," Jones said. "The only reason he's fighting me now is because he thinks I'm done, washed up. He feels there's no way I can survive 12 rounds with him. But he's wrong.
"I know how he fights. He is going to try to rough me up. But he has no idea what I am going to do or how I am going to fight. I know what he does. You can't teach an old dog new tricks. And he is old. He looks like he is 52."
With every smarmy putdown, Jones infuriates Hopkins just a bit more, tearing a page from the B-Hop playbook that holds that anger can make a fighter careless and more vulnerable. Remember when Hopkins twice threw down the Puerto Rican flag before his Sept. 29, 2001, showdown with Felix Trinidad? That was strategy, and it paid off huge.
Hopkins contends that his first fight with Jones "helped sculpture my character and my psyche." If it did, it made him more of an icy assassin than a hot-blooded reactionary.
It might be best if Hopkins were to remember what he has become rather than to go back to what he once was.
Pay-per-view deal
Ever hear a millionaire fighter say, "I want to beat this guy so bad, I'd fight him for free?"
Well, unless there is a greater demand than anticipated by the public to fork over the $49.95 pay-per-view fee to watch the Bernard Hopkins-Roy Jones II telecast here tomorrow night at the Mandalay Bay, Jones might actually end up fighting for nothing, or close to it.
Although the agreement is for a 50-50 purse split, with a 10 percent kicker to the winner should the scheduled 12-round light-heavyweight bout end in a knockout or technical knockout, terms of the contract the fighters signed is heavily slanted toward Hopkins.
Hopkins and his promotional company, Golden Boy, are to receive the first $3.5 million in PPV revenues. Jones and his company, Square Ring, get the next $3.5 million. Anything over and above $7 million, the fighters split down the middle.
It's a pretty safe bet that, even with relatively weak PPV sales, Hopkins will get paid every cent for which he was contracted. Jones, who once had a sweetheart of a contract with HBO that guaranteed him at least $5 million for his every ring appearance on the pay-cable giant, could be left holding a mostly empty bag. And if Hopkins stops the Pensacola, Fla., native, much of what Jones, 41, would receive might have to be handed over via the stoppage bonus clause.
fernanb@phillynews.com
Source: philly.com
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