According to Matt Breen of philly.com, future Hall of Famer Bernard Hopkins is eyeing one more farewell bout in 2015 before he calls it a career. "It isn't going to be a cheap, cheesy one. 'I'm done, I'm going, had a great time, bye ya'll.' This is going to be a thing where I want you to get dressed up. I want you to come. I want you to have a little hors d'oeuvre. I want you to get ready for the fight," Hopkins stated when asked about retirement. On Monday, the 49-year-old was reportedly already back in the gym following his disappointing shutout loss to unified WBA, IBF, & WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev.
"The word is if. I'm not doing it unless it's what I want. If it's the one I want and we do it - and it can be done - I won't stay," Hopkins continued, explaining that he's hoping for a "one and done" ending to his storied career. The question is, who is the one? Some might think that the living legend would want a soft touch after going 12 rounds with the hard-hitting Kovalev in a bout that saw him take more punishment than he ever has in his career. But such is not the case with Hopkins. The man he's hoping to face is yet another hard-hitting, albeit smaller, wrecking machine...undefeated middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin.
"This is the Brett Favre of boxing leaving. This is Roger Staubach in his time leaving the game. This is Michael Jordan leaving the game, playing in the Finals one more time," Hopkins added. Although Hopkins was unable to mount any type of competitive offense against Kovalev and it appears Father Time has indeed caught up to him, the fact that Golovkin would be the naturally smaller man in the fight makes the idea of Hopkins vs. Golovkin somewhat intriguing. Time will tell if this is just talk or if the fight could actually come to fruition in the future.
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