Bernard Hopkins not ready to decide on future after loss
ATLANTIC CITY — Less than two hours after receiving a beating in the ring like he hasn't seen or felt in years, Bernard Hopkins still had a smile on his somewhat swollen face, a twinkle in his eye and his legendary sense of humor.
What the 49-year-old future Hall of Fame boxer didn't have was a plan for a future that became considerably more cloudy after his shutout loss to Russian knockout artist Sergey Kovalev before more than 8,500 raucous fans at Boardwalk Hall who were there Saturday night to witness history.
He did not blame age for his subpar performance. There was no "Alien" talk afterwards, no green mask anywhere to be seen. Kovalev proved Hopkins is human after all.
"Win, lose or draw, I don't go out saying I didn't win because I'm 49. If you ain't supposed to be in the ring, it don't matter what age you are," Hopkins said.
Of course, media at the postfight news conference wanted to know what's next for the man who just lost two light-heavyweight belts and some well-earned swagger?
"Asking me if I'm going to fight right now is like asking a woman who just had nine hours of labor if she's going to have another baby," Hopkins joked.
That's about all he would offer on the subject. But his longtime friend, business partner and onetime knockout victim, Oscar De La Hoya, didn't see the end of a brilliant 26-year career as being imminent.
The Golden Boy, whose company co-promoted the fight with Main Events, suggested perhaps Hopkins could come down in weight and fight the likes of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., or even undefeated middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin, which drew some guffaws from the audience.
"I don't know what he'll do," De La Hoya said. "But one thing I do know is that he's not going to retire."
Hopkins has said all along he wanted to fight Canadian Adonis Stevenson, who holds the WBC light-heavyweight belt and has so far avoided both Hopkins and Kovalev. But after suffering a loss in which Hopkins failed to win a round on any of the three judges' scorecards, it will be Kovalev (26-0-1, 23 KOs), who now holds the other three major 175-pound titles and likely gets that title unification bid.
"I told the world I wanted to leave the game, or at least establish what I did in the middleweight division (a record 20 consecutive title defenses) and I had my shot," Hopkins said. "That's the way it goes."
Hopkins (55-7-2, 32 KOs) had only praise for his vanquisher,
"He's a strong candidate for fighter of the year. That's my opinion," Hopkins said of Kovalev,
who has won all three of his fights in 2014, the first two by early knockout.
"There ain't nobody who would have fought a fight like that with me the way he did. He was smart. He didn't get caught up in emotion when I tried to suck him in."
Asked if he felt like he passed the torch to the undefeated Kovalev in the light-heavyweight division, Hopkins laughed and said, "He already got the torch. I didn't have to pass it. He got the torch tonight.
"I feel confident saying that as a champion, if he wanted to stay (at 175 pounds) and defend it, he'll stay there for a long time."
Main Events promoter Kathy Duva, who handles Kovalev, has struggled for years to compete with the sport's two biggest promoters, Golden Boy and Top Rank. On this night, Duva didn't even try to keep the smile off her face as she explained how her new meal ticket has suddenly become one of the hottest names in the sport and can pick and choose what he wants to do next.
"We found out he can go 12 rounds, and we found out he can box with the very best in the world," Duva said.
As for what's next for the newly crowned unified champion, Duva said, "Sergey will go home (to Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) and meet his son (Aleksandr, born last month) for the first time.
"And I'm going to talk to Peter Nelson (HBO's vice president of Programming) next week and we'll start working on his next fight. Right now there's no definitive plan to do anything."
Then she added, "This (fight) was for the glory. Next time we're fighting for the money."