snr
James Lawton: Age concern as Hopkins and Calzaghe Snr exchange jibes - Others, More Sports - The Independent
Skip Links
Skip to navigation
Skip to primary content
Skip to secondary content
Skip to tertiary content
Skip to footer
Audlem: The English village that would rather be Welsh
More Sports
20°
London
Hi 20°C / Lo 9°C
Search
Query:
Go
Headlines
On the Campaign Trail
Live reporting from the US |
see Race for White House |
Click here...
Navigation
News
UK
Home News
UK Politics
Crime
This Britain
Europe
World
Americas
Middle East
Asia
Africa
Australasia
World Politics
Business
News
Comment
Analysis & Features
Sharewatch
SME
In the News
MPs' Finances
Race for White House
Northern Rock
Credit Crunch
Packaging
People
Science
Media
Education
News
Schools
Further
Higher
Robert Fisk
Obituaries
Corrections
Opinion
Leading Articles
Commentators
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown
Bruce Anderson
Joan Bakewell
Terence Blacker
Simon Carr
Rupert Cornwell
Mary Dejevsky
Andrew Grice
Adrian Hamilton
Johann Hari
Philip Hensher
Howard Jacobson
Dominic Lawson
Donald Macintyre
Hamish McRae
Matthew Norman
Deborah Orr
Christina Patterson
John Rentoul
Steve Richards
Sarah Sands
Joan Smith
Mark Steel
Janet Street-Porter
Alan Watkins
Andreas Whittam Smith
Columnists
Cooper Brown
Tracey Emin
Richard Ingrams
Alex James
Dom Joly
Dylan Jones
Miles Kington
David Lister
Pandora
Will Self
Thomas Sutcliffe
Catherine Townsend
Rebecca Tyrrel
Brian Viner
John Walsh
Claudia Winkleman
Letters
Big Question
Open House
Environment
Climate Change
Green Living
Nature
Sound & Vision
Sport
Football
Premier League
Football League
FA & League Cups
International
European
Scottish
News & Comment
Cricket
Rugby Union
Golf
Tennis
Motor Racing
Racing
More Sports
Athletics
Rugby League
Sailing
Others
Life & Style
Fashion
News
Features
Shopping
Food & Drink
News
Reviews
Features
Recipes
Health & Wellbeing
Health News
Features
Healthy Living
Health A-Z
House & Home
Interiors
Gardening
Property
Property Search
Gadgets & Tech
News
Features
Motoring
Features
Road Tests
Comment
Used Car Search
New Car Search
Dating
Gaming
Arts & Entertainment
Film & TV
News
Features
Film Reviews
TV & Radio Reviews
Music
News
Features
Reviews
Music Magazine
Art & Architecture
News
Features
Reviews
Great Works
Theatre
News
Features
Reviews
Books
News
Features
Reviews
Travel
News
48 Hours In
Africa
Americas
Asia
Australasia & Pacific
Europe
Middle East
UK
Skiing
Business Travel
Sound & Vision
Money
Invest & Save
Loans & Credit
Mortgages
Pensions
Insurance
Tax
Financial Directory
Extras
Features
Saturday Magazine
Sunday Review
Sound & Vision
IndyBlogs
IndyBest
Crosswords
Weather
Front Pages
Student
Career Planning
A-Z Careers
Apprenticeships
Vocational Study
Getting a Job
Gap Year
Getting Into University
A-Z Degrees
A-Z Unis & Colleges
Applying
Clearing
Overseas
Student Life
Health
Accommodation
Finances
Music & Film
Fashion
Technology & Gaming
Postgraduate
Postgraduate Study
MBAs Guide
A-Z Business Schools
Competitions
Offers
from The Independent & The Independent on Sunday
Home > Sport > More Sports > Others
James Lawton: Age concern as Hopkins and Calzaghe Snr exchange jibes
He may be 43, but Bernard Hopkins roars defiance after ageist taunts from the Calzaghe camp
Getty Images
Bernard Hopkins appears somewhat bemused as Enzo Calzaghe, Joe's father and trainer, confronts him during the build-up to
tomorrow's light-heavyweight fight
enlarge
Print
Email
Search
Search
Go
Independent.co.uk
Web
Bookmark & Share
Digg It
del.icio.us
Facebook
Stumbleupon
What are these?
Friday, 18 April 2008
Maybe he made the point as much for himself, and some ebbing belief in the buoyancy of his status as boxing's most endangered time traveller, as for Joe Calzaghe. But Bernard Hopkins, aged 43, conjured the most jarring riposte when his opponent's father and trainer, Enzo, this week presented him with an old man's walking stick.
Take
a closer at the Italian Dragon prior to this weekend's fight
Hopkins said that no one should forget November 1994, and what happened just a
few blocks down Las Vegas Boulevard. They shouldn't forget the punch that
sent disbelief into every corner of a sport long conditioned to the
sometimes brutal force of the unexpected. Nor the words of television
commentator Jim Lampley.
For the most obvious reasons, said Hopkins, they have been for him a source of
special inspiration in these final days of the build-up to tomorrow's fight
with a Calzaghe who is in a different league in speed and style, unbeaten in
18 years of fighting as an amateur and a pro, a world champion for 11 years
and, at 36, seven years his junior.
The words of Lampley: "It's happened, it's happened... the old man has
come through."
The old man: George Foreman, aged 45, and the new holder of two world
heavyweight titles.
Twenty years after losing the title to Muhammad Ali in Zaire in one of the
greatest upsets in boxing history, Foreman had beaten Michael Moorer, aged
27, for the WBA and IBF titles he had taken from Evander Holyfield.
Foreman, who found God and became the Punchin' Preacher in all the time he had
to reflect on the African debacle, rushed back to his corner, knelt and
prayed. He was dressed in the baggy red shorts he wore against Ali – and the
aura of a man who had beaten time, the fight game's most ungovernable
opponent. The big question here is whether Hopkins can walk in the steps of
Foreman on Saturday night. It is one that surely gnaws, at least a little,
at the heart of Calzaghe. It is the trouble with precedents if you are on
the wrong side of them.
It doesn't matter that Moorer made a decision of historic stupidity, after
outpointing the old man for 10 rounds, when he stood still, for the first
time, in the path of a short and devastating right hand from Foreman that
connected with the tip of his jaw. There was never any question that Moorer
would fail to beat the count. Stunned, broken, he would have to live for
ever with the fact that he had fallen for arguably boxing's ultimate sucker
punch, and that it had come from out of an ancient mist.
All in all, it probably wasn't Calzaghe snr's smartest move to present the
walking stick. It enabled Hopkins, while giving an impersonation of a sad
old geezer, to point out gleefully that one of his more recent, and much
favoured opponents, Antonio Tarver, had gone even further with the present
of a wheelchair. And he was beaten hollow.
None of this disturbs the truth that there are few greater follies than
staying in the ring too long and risking that moment when everything turns
off at pretty much the same time, when the lights go out and the blood turns
cold and the potential long-term damage is the incalculable one of living
the rest of your life with no more vim than a zombie's.
This can be corroborated, apparently, by anyone who has recently seen Ali
operating, according to the best medical opinion, within prison walls
created not just by Parkinson's syndrome but the accumulated damage of a
career that went on too long and required him to take far too much
gratuitous punishment For anyone making cases studies of the problem there
is no pressing need to leave this town and some of the more troubling
aspects of its fight history.
Ali is perhaps the most compelling starting and finishing point. In 1980, at
the age of 38, he persuaded many boxing people who should have known better
than he had a ghost of a chance against his former sparring partner, the
relentless and hugely underrated hitter Larry Holmes. Three years after
sustaining so much damage from Earnie Shavers at Madison Square Garden – his
senior medical adviser quit on the spot – Ali managed to do this by the
reckless use of diuretics, which had a cosmetic effect but sent him into the
ring no more than a shell of some recreated physical beauty. Watching him
being beaten so remorselessly, in a converted parking lot at Ceasars Palace,
made some notably unsentimental men cry.
Yet it is not so easy to place Hopkins in this forlorn category. His body is
the product of a lifestyle regime which has been growing in dedication, some
would say fanaticism, ever since he was released from prison in his early
twenties. The other day, for example, he lectured his highly respected
conditioning coach Mackie Shilstone on the harmful effects of consuming too
much pomegranate.
Shilstone said, dryly, "Bernard, don't I get paid for telling you stuff
like that?"
Another member of the fighter's corner, strategist Nazim Richardson, talks
endlessly of Hopkins's survival instincts developed by the strength required
to survive the prison experience. He says that in terms of knowing and
dealing with the tough side of life, Hopkins and Calzaghe inhabit different
planets. "Bernard has figured it all out," says Richardson.
Philadelphia's mayor, John F Street, recently acknowledged Hopkins's journey
from the unpromising streets of the north end of the city by appointing him
to his drug and alcohol commission. Said Street, "Bernard Hopkins is so
much more than a superb fighter. He's a man who overcame a troubled youth,
who believed in himself and reached the pinnacle of his profession. As a
former inmate, Bernard knows first hand the struggle facing people as they
leave prison and re-enter society. They face rejection and lose hope."
Naturally, Hopkins, survivor and prospective political opportunist, was happy
to endorse such an opinion on a civic occasion of some pomp, saying, "I
got out of the hard part of the city and I'm dedicated to helping others do
the same. The oath of the street is a fool's oath."
Some would say, though, it is no more foolish than fighting on beyond your
time, inviting the kind of denouement that can carry you straight to a high
dependency ward. Yet Hopkins's dangerous justifications, some might argue,
stretch beyond the old man's glory of Foreman.
Twelve years ago for example, some of us, not many it is true, persuaded
ourselves that Holyfield had a fighting chance of beating Mike Tyson here.
This was despite the fact that a few months earlier he had looked awful
against Bobby Czyz, a puffed-up cruiserweight, and that he sounded as though
he was already beginning to slur his words.
The instinct that he would win had much to do with his warrior nature and that
Tyson, though four years his junior, had been gorging fat on boxing scraps
ever since emerging from prison in Indianapolis. Yet the experienced trainer
Teddy Atlas was just one extremely discouraging witness. He said, "OK,
Evander is only 34 – but that's on the book and not in reality. He is at
least 10 years older in the punishment he has taken, the wars he has fought.
The Holyfield you are talking about, the great warrior, no longer exists."
But he did. He backed up and beat Tyson gloriously and when the New York
Athletic Commission banned him from boxing just two years ago it was not
because of failed medical tests – he passed a battery of them – but "diminished
skills". The most recent evidence of victories over Tarver and Winky
Wright do not leave Hopkins open to such a charge, though of course one of
the problems of fighting too long is that you never quite know when the
curtains are going to come down.
Hopkins says, "People were calling me old 10 years ago, but they want you
to think you are old. So, yeah, you can get little cramps here and soreness
there, because you just happen to be human. You start second-guessing
yourself and in a split-second of hesitation you can become old, you can be
vulnerable. But you know I'm a strong-minded man. It comes from my past that
wasn't always good and moulded me into something Joe Calzaghe can never be –
and it doesn't make him a bad person either. But at times like this, at
events like this, it does separate him from who I am, and this is something
that gets played out in every fight I fight.
"I don't want to look like no jailhouse bully, looking for prey coming
through the gates for the first time – so Joe, don't make me look like that
jailhouse bully."
It is the least of Joe Calzaghe's ambitions. Joe simply wants to make Bernard
look old and uncommonly reckless to be still in the ring. He has more than
enough talent to do this but then as Hopkins mentioned with what some might
say was close to psychological genius, Michael Moorer also fancied his
chances against George Foreman.
Interesting? Click here to explore further
Print Article
Email Article
Also in this section
Sport on TV: Thailand's not-so-sweet science leaves sour taste
Snooker: Ebdon claims first place in last eight
.yahooFooter {background-color: #D3E3E8; line-height: 1.2em}.yahoo3rdcolumn .padding5px {padding: 0px; padding-left:10px; padding-right:10px; padding-bottom: 5px; margin-bottom: 10px}.yahoo3rdcolumn ul { list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: inside; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-indent: 0px; margin: 5px 0px 10px 0px; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter li {margin-bottom: 0px; color: #5f62a7;}
.yahooFooter .yh a {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yh a:link {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yh a:hover {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yh a:visited {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yd a {font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yd a:link {color:black; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yd a:hover {color:black; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yd a:visited {font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yl a {color:green; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yl a:link {color:green; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yl a:hover {color:green; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter .yl a:visited {font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahooFooter h4 { font-family: Arial, Tahoma,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-weight: bold; color: #A49156; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; background: #272125; padding: 8px;}
Advertiser Links
Click here...
Click here...
.yahoo3rdcolumn {background-color: #D3E3E8; max-width: 130px; line-height: 1.2em}.yahoo3rdcolumn .padding5px {padding: 0px; padding-left:10px; padding-right:10px; padding-bottom: 5px;}.yahoo3rdcolumn ul { list-style-type: disc; list-style-position: inside; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: 0px; text-indent: 0px; margin: 5px 0px 10px 0px; font-family: Verdana; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn li {margin-bottom: 0px; color: #5f62a7;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yh a {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yh a:link {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yh a:hover {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yh a:visited {font-weight: bold; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yd a {font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; }
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yd a:link {color:black; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yd a:hover {color:black; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yd a:visited {font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yl a {color:green; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px; display: none;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yl a:link {color:green; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yl a:hover {color:green; font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn .yl a:visited {font-weight: normal; font-size: 11px;}
.yahoo3rdcolumn h4 { font-family: Arial, Tahoma,Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 17px; font-weight: bold; color: #A49156; margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; background: #272125; padding: 8px;}
Advertiser Links
.partners select, input {font-family : verdana, "lucida Sans", Arial; font-size: 12px;}
.partners {font-family : verdana, "lucida Sans", Arial; font-size: 12px; line-height: 1.2em; width: 290px; clear: both;}
.partners td{font-family : arial, "lucida Sans", Arial; font-size: 12px;}
.partners a{font-family : arial, "lucida Sans", Arial; font-size: 12px; margin-bottom:4px; color: #272125;}
.partners ul {margin:0px; padding-left:15px;
list-style: none;
margin-left: 0;
padding-left: 1em;
text-indent: -1em;}.partners li {margin:0px; margin-bottom:4px;}.partners { margin: 10 0 0px; padding: 0 7px; background: #BFE0EA; border: 0px solid #CEB669; border-bottom: 1px solid #BFE0EA;} .partners h2 { margin: 0 -7px 10px; padding: 5px 7px; border-bottom: 0px solid #ccc; background: #272125; font-family : arial, "lucida Sans", Arial; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom:4px; color: #A49156;}.partners h2 a{font-family : arial, "lucida Sans", Arial; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom:4px; color: #A49156;}
#secondaryColumn .partners h2 { color: #A49156; } .partners h2 img { display: block; }.widebutton {margin-bottom: 10px;}.dianomibrochure {background-image: url(http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00010/pound_bg_10844a.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: right bottom;}.viagogosport {background-image: url(http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00010/viagogo_sport2_10883a.gif); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: right bottom;} .travelcatalink h2 { background: #4466AA; background-image: url(#); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: right bottom;} .travelleisuredirection h2 { background: #44AAAA; background-image: url(#); background-repeat: no-repeat; background-position: right bottom;}.commercialButton{
background-color: #5193AE;
border: 1px #5193AE outset;
padding: 4 6px;
color: white;
text-decoration: none;
font: bold 12px Arial;
}.imgborder {border: 1px solid #ffffff;}.mysupermarket { background: #ffffff; border-bottom: 0px solid #ccc}
Sport Tickets
Sports Spread Betting
Cricket |
Football |
Racing |
Rugby |
UK Betting
.widebutton { margin-bottom: 10px; }
.widebutton { margin-bottom: 10px; }
.widebutton { margin-bottom: 10px; }
Search
Query:
Independent.co.uk
The Web
Go
©independent.co.uk
Legal Terms & Policies
|
E-mail sign-up
|
RSS
|
Contact us
|
Syndication
|
Work for INM
|
Advertising Guide
|
Group Sites
|
London Careers
разделы
узи
ночной очки
бахила
рефконтейнеры
бензопила stihl
схема зал вахтангова
сбор д/полоскания горло зубной боль
стенд
беременность род
кулер
ваза 2111
кулер бесшумный
lida
бесплатный нард
управление иваново
телематические служба
аппарат фигурный нарезка тест
телевизионный антенна
кожгалантерея
персонализация карта
охота пиранья
ферромолибден
ферромолибден
пазл
монитор видеодомофона, монитор, видеодомофон
покраска аэротенк
кпк опт
слюдопластовые втулка
автономный электроснабжение
флаг башня
срезанный цвет
ваза 2114
бензопила dolmar
эдас-934 аденома предст.ж-зы
telecomfm gsmphone
вымпел заказ
эфирный антенна
классический аэробика
гуп ритуал
крановый тележка
швейцария культура
растворитель 646
органический растворитель
southpark
переводческий бюро
затенение витрина
медикаметозное безоперационное прерывание беременность
клеить 88 люкс
штанга насосный
ножной пластырь
braas
агат кристи билет
виниловый дирижабль
lucent definity
компания макса линдера
kiev apartaments rent
велюкс
neri karra кожгалантерея
лечение папиллома
искать фотограф
отпуск конец
персонализация карта
куллер 478
snr
