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Bernard Hopkins is a middleweight nearing middle age, and he intends to play that to the hilt. “I turned 40 years old on Jan. 15, so the question is where and when Bernard Hopkins starts looking like he’s 40? I’m going to sell it,” the undisputed 160-pound champion said Wednesday. “And I’m a small guy, not a heavyweight that doesn’t have to move around. I want people to say, ‘This guy’s fighting guys 10, 14, 20 years younger than him.’ I want them to say, `Look at his heart, look at his lifestyle. Watch this ageless fighter, see how special Bernard Hopkins is.”’
Hopkins, who hasn’t lost since being decisioned by Roy Jones Jr., in 1993, will try to run his string of successful title defenses to 20 on Saturday night against Howard Eastman.
“Not many fighters stay on the top this long and don’t show any signs of slowing down. I’m going to present myself like I’m 21 or 22,” Hopkins said. “You live right, you train right, you get the mileage out of your body.”
He laughed and said he has made one concession to his age. Now, he “sleeps in.”
“I used to get up at 4:30-5 (a.m.) to run. Now I’m getting up like 6-6:15 to run,” Hopkins said. “Other than that, everything’s feeling great.”
Hopkins will bring a 45-2-1 record with 32 knockouts into the 12-round bout at Staples Center. Eastman, a native of Guyana who fights out of Battersea, England, is 40-1, with 34 knockouts.
Eastman is the European and Commonwealth champion, but hasn’t fought many well-known opponents. His lone loss was by majority decision to William Joppy in Las Vegas in November 2001.
Hopkins, who took an unanimous decision over Joppy in December 2003, is coming off ninth-round knockout of Oscar De La Hoya.
Hopkins also knocked out Felix Trinidad in the 12th round when they met in 2001.
De La Hoya and Hopkins have teamed up, and De La Hoya is promoting the card under the auspices of his Golden Boy Promotions.
Although the 33-year-old Eastman said Hopkins is a “hardcore individual” with phenomenal boxing skills, he also predicts he will stop the champion in five rounds.
“No disrespect to Hopkins, but the number five is there in my head,” Eastman said. “I don’t know how it got there. I know I’m going to take him out early because there are a lot of things in my game that people haven’t seen.”
Hopkins, of course, has a different prediction.
“He means what he says and I mean what I say when I say what I’ll do to Howard Eastman,” Hopkins said. “Let me tell you, everybody can’t be right. Come Sunday, somebody’s going to be asking the question: ‘What happened?’
“And guess what? I don’t want to be that person.”
