Bernard Hopkins Uncensored!`

Fightnews had the opportunity to sit down one-on-one in an exclusive interview with former undisputed middleweight champion, now President of Golden Boy Promotions East, Bernard Hopkins. After witnessing the inaugural card for his newly established company at the Borgata Hotel and Casino, Hopkins talked about the disputed decision from his fight with Jermain Taylor, how he is moving on with his career despite the setback, his new relationship with the fans and much more.

Asked about how his new career as a promoter is affecting his quest to regain his title. Hopkins began first by telling of how he has adapted to life without his championship to running a promotion company. Bernard said, “My interpretation of what happened tonight, compared to where my mind is at prior to two weeks ago, it’s like being in a relationship with a girl that you loved and been with for a long time, but then she left you. Now you found a new and better one, and for right now the mind set not with the past. I have a new situation that I knew, win or lose [my last fight], I had to perform no matter what the outcome was…I was prepared for that.”

Hopkins continued, “As you’ve seen with my demeanor, being accessible to the media, just coming off a media frenzy where I had to carry the media for my show…Jermain Talyor wasn’t groomed enough to be able to step up. Maybe the [next time] we get in the ring he’ll be able to take up some of the slack that I had to do. This was such a big coming out party for Bernard Hopkins and Demetrius Hopkins. Being in Atlantic City where most of the fights early in my career were at, this to me was something that was an easy transition. We needed more seats, and couldn’t get them, because it sold out. We had walk-ins that got turned away. The Borgata was very professional in their first time ever doing a boxing show.”

Needless to say, Hopkins was quite impressed with the performance of his nephew, Demetrius, in the main event. He responded, “That is the BEST! I don’t know how long you’ve been watching him fight. You could say maybe that I’m a little biased because I’m the promoter, and I just happen to be the uncle. But that’s the best I’ve seen Demetrius in a long time.”

Bernard continued, “Demetrius normally didn’t show power, seemed to get tired later on, you know, wasn’t exciting, you’d see skill in flashes. But tonight, tonight he [at least] has people thinking. Maybe not now, but maybe around this time next year, take him to the USBA, NABF, get his feet wet. Let him know how it is to date, get a kiss, take her out, and boom, hopefully he can score, if you know what I mean.”

Bernard mentioned that as a promoter, he has the opportunity to manage the careers of fighters to avoid mistakes that were made promoting his own career. “Now signing with De La Hoya, going back in my career, I don’t feel I’ve been promoted the way I should have. But in saying that, I believe that I was my best promoter, whether it was positive or negative. I seem to come up with the hood, the flag, I mean whenever it written, it was press, so this was an easy transition for me.

“In the same token, I sorta killed two birds with one stone. People are still angry and disappointed that a fight that I clearly one won, if it was based on one round, the twelfth round which was given the other guy, would have at least made it a draw, I think that pulled the skirt off the girl. I think that really showed the Bernard Hopkins fights against his injustice, whether it’s towards me or it’s toward anybody in the industry that’s a fighter.”

Hopkins discussed how the controversial loss increased his popularity among the fans. “[It] made other people that [weren’t] my fans, as you’ve seen the crowd go up and holler and scream and ask for autographs…you’ve got to remember I was supposed to be the loser. I’ve been traveling from city and city being asked to come, not on a campaign to win people over. Everywhere I go…the Trinidad fight was the most important fight of my career; the Oscar fight was the most important fight of my career. But I’m gonna be honest with you. I never had the fans openly, of all colors, race creed, express their feelings on who is the real champion, and who actually is the legitimate undisputed middleweight champion. Jermain Taylor cannot walk and go anywhere in this world amongst boxing fans and be noticed and expressed by fans as the guy that truly beat Bernard Hopkins.

“I’ve even won over the doubters. I mean, Steve Kim (a boxing writer)…he’s not my enemy, but we don’t speak, I’ll just leave it at that. He was honest in his report. Because we don’t speak often I’ll still go on the websites because I’m in the business. And I want to know what people are saying about Bernard Hopkins. Believe it or not, I [have] thick skin, you got to have that, if you agree or don’t agree with me. When you have a guy like that where [he and I] don’t see eye-to-eye, actually telling the truth, and there’s fourteen other media ringside that I could say are credible…Tim Smith, Dan Rafael, Ron Borges, [and yourselves] (Kurt Wolfheimer, John Buhl - Fightnews), only thing I have to do is just be me and let others, fans, make their judgments. I’m the people’s champion. I’ve been converted from being the industry champion to the people’s champion not because of one night and one fight, it’s because what I have stood up for and took heat for leading up to this. You got to remember, I’m a very vocal guy, as you can imagine. I’ve stood up even when it cost me. I’m always perceived to be the underdog amongst people no matter how much equity I’ve earned the last three or four years. They still look at me as a guy that didn’t change stripes because he finally broke in, and finally got what he wanted, and finally achieved his goal, [then] became strictly corporate and don’t remember anything about the struggle. I haven’t changed my stripes. If anything I became more vocal, I became more adamant about my situation.”

Bernard discussed how he would change his approach in a rematch due to the outcome of the July 16th match, and the way the judges handled it.

Hopkins replied, “If it’s in Vegas, and Duane Ford got a relative that’s voting and he’s there, I’ve got to knock him out. See, I know going in…knowing that I can’t win it on technical skills alone, I have to at least make a real strong attempt to just make it to the point where it becomes a national investigation. Stay in front of your eyes, wake the guy up, and give him another chance to say, for some reason he fell asleep for ten seconds. I’m being funny, but I’m also being serious. [I know] what I’m going into.”

Bernard continued, “You always got that in your mind that you have to be, overwhelmingly and no doubt, the winner by your performance. But now I at least got a head start, which I didn’t actually know 100% going in, is that if I don’t do these things, I can go on record right now saying that I won’t win. I believe that it’s either a knockout, or a loss.”

Hopkins discussed his appealing the decision, though he knew the decision would not be overturned. Bernard answered, “Here I am, Bernard Hopkins, Golden Boy East. Here fighters call me everyday, some I can help, and some I can’t help. I’m under a microscope, and doesn’t just mean I’m being analyzed as a promoter, I’m being analyzed as a guy whether he stands up for his fighters or himself, or whether he lets things happen in front of everybody’s eyes. 90% of the people can agree, unless you’re from Arkansas, that I’ve been jobbed and it was a heist. Can I just go away and say fine, I’ll just worry about the rematch and how much money I can make? No, no, no. I wasn’t a part of the hypocrisy.”

“I know that Bernard Hopkins got the bad end of the deal, that made boxing look bad again. We had an incident where Holyfield and Lennox Lewis fought in the Garden. This was on those terms, when a judge said that they didn’t see because their view was blocked, and they just checked the box and made an educated guess, but it was a stupid guess. It was alleged that Duane Ford said the same thing when he was asked, that he didn’t really see, but he heard the crowd, which was pro-Arkansas, and his back was towards them, and he voted for Jermain Taylor. To me that’s incompetent for a judge that has that type of experience, 22 world championship fights. But the appeal was based on the right to do it, and to show other fighters that signed already or are thinking about signing, that Bernard Hopkins as a [fighter and promoter] is not going to just take something because they hand it to you, and not [challenge something]. I had to let them know that I wasn’t going to lie down just because someone said so, someone made a mistake, or someone didn’t see the last round. And I think that was the best move. The response of doing it showed me that it wasn’t a dumb move. Again, I wasn’t expecting anything to happen, you know. I’d go to Alaska and try to plant a peach tree.”

When Fightnews broached the topic of the HBO announcers and how they handled the commentary of the Hopkins – Taylor fight, Bernard was quick to respond. “It showed that Larry Merchant – and I’m not going to go so far as to say Jim Lampley, though he seemed to follow the lead of Larry Merchant – in his demeanor and his commentating that he has something personal against Bernard Hopkins. What that is, I don’t know. When he sees me, he speaks like nothing happened. When I’m in the dressing room before I go out, he comes in, does a quick interview, and then he leaves. But when I’m not around, and I can’t have the last word and they have that power to, no matter what you say, they make the final analysis and comments. Larry Merchant gave the hint to the American people that he personally tried to poison the minds of [people] with me in the commentary in the Jermain Taylor fight. It’s clear on the tape. ‘Oh, he’s not wearing his Halloween mask this time,’ was one of his quotes. Every time Larry speaks negative about a guy that’s respected – maybe not liked by a lot of people, but respected – he makes himself look unprofessional. So he’s helping me even though he’s not, even when his intentions are to belittle me, to mock me. It’s a chain reaction, but it’s a boomerang effect that does the opposite. It’s B-Hop mania everywhere I go. [If it’s] LA, I don’t [if it’s] Virginia or Philadelphia, which is off the chain, cops, security guards, workers in Atlantic City. Everyone is saying, ‘Hey you got robbed, you’ll get him next time.’ I’m politicking, I’m shaking hands. Watch the fight December. This is my time to get the last word back. The last word back will be mine. The beginning of the book was interesting. The end of the book is going to be even greater.”