Boxing: At Age 45, Can Bernard Hopkins Dominate the Light Heavyweight Division?

By Troy Sparks

In the last two weeks, I saw the top four boxers in the light heavyweight division battle. The No. 5-ranked boxer is ready for any of those guys who wants a piece of him.

Bernard Hopkins is trying to reach the top of the division against the boxers almost half his age. The "executioner" isn't impressed with Tavoris Cloud, who beat an aging Glen Johnson recently. "I'm the new Hopkins.  I'm taking over this division," Cloud said in the post-fight press conference.

That's a bold statement to make for a fighter with only 21 wins into his career.

"That's pretty confident, but there's only one executioner, and that's me," Hopkins said in the studio of ESPN's Friday Night Fights.

If anybody knew why they called him that nickname, the evidence left in the ring said it all. There was a stretch of his 20 straight wins with 15 knockouts, including 11 in the first round. Hopkins once stopped a fighter in 24 seconds. He also defended his IBF title 12 times without a loss and knocked out Johnson in the process.

The "executioner" was Fighter of the Year nine years ago with signature wins over Roy Jones Jr. the last two times and Oscar De La Hoya. He whooped Felix Trinidad so bad that his own daddy came in the ring to drag his son out.

Winky Wright and Kelly Pavlik saw defeat up front against Hopkins. And at the age of 41, Hopkins beat the younger, highly proclaimed Antonio Tarver.

So it gives Hopkins plenty of reasons of beating one of the young whippersnappers. Right now, he's not in training, but he's scoping out the competition.

"I'm just waiting for these guys to settle for who deserves to fight Bernard Hopkins," he said.