Hopkins v Calzaghe - Judgement Day on Setanta Sports
Friday, April 18th, 2008Repent ye Sinners!
Tomorrow night, well, technically Sunday Morning, Las Vegas will be rocked by the deafening sound of Joe Calzaghe and Bernard Hopkins meeting in the ring. Extensive media coverage has been rolling on the two, affording boxing fans a glimpse on the backgrounds and psyches of the two fighters.
BBC Inside Sport has been rolling with a 15 minute short film on Hopkins, detailing his time spent inside the Greaterford institution when he was just a teenager, and how boxing gave him the discipline he needed to reform.
“It’s no big secret. Joe is fighting Bernard Hopkins because everybody else either got beat, or beaten by me.” Perhaps mindful of the fact that the fight over here is being advertised as ‘Judgement Day’ (the bout is being touted as both ‘Battle of the Planet’ in the US) Hopkins talks to Inside Sport with an air of destiny, as if “everything has a full circle to it…
“I believe that all this was scripted. From my childhood days of ignorance to my adolescence in the penitentiary - Joe hasn’t fought anybody in any of his fights with my quality or my credibly of what I’ve done in my career. My record shows that I can talk the talk, and I have walked the walk, for many years.”
Hopkins has also been quick to stir up the patriotic feelings of his audience by pinning the Stars and Stripes to his shorts: “When I step into that ring I represent myself and my family, but I also represent the USA. I believe we have the best athletes in boxing and if I have to prove that then I will do so.”
He is conscious of Joe’s ‘Britishness’ (he is, of course, half Italian) and the fact that his opponent has not once fought outside Europe, and even then has fought most of his matches in either Wales or England. But the US, who has hardly heard of him will not know this; Hopkins has done his best to rouse all feelings of a British Invasion, the first wave of which was seen off by Pretty Boy Floyd Mayweather who dealt Ricky Hatton his first ever defeat: “We have to put a stop to your invasion. You want to put us under the Queen’s regime - I’m the black Paul Revere saying, ‘the British are coming again’.”
“The Brits are here, that’s it,” the Executioner told Setanta Sports. “You’ve got the Brits here and I’ve never beat up on a Brit before. Now I get to kick someone else’s ass from across the pond; it’s great, it’s great motivation!”
Joe Calzaghe has consistently weathered all the brow beating, only really responding to Hopkins’ taunts indirectly, painting a picture of a man who would just rather get on with it and let his fists do the talking. He has said of Hopkins that he “is king of talk,” and that “they should give him his own TV show.
“Hopkins, he’s the way he is. He’s going to get in your face and try to intimidate you,” Calzaghe said after the momentous weigh-in at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas for the Mayweather-Hatton fight. It was here that Hopkins infamously uttered his ‘I’d never lose to a white boy’ line.
“I said what I said,” explained the Executioner. “People who know me, know me. You can write what you want and you have the legal right to do that. It’s up to Joe Calzaghe to prove me a liar.”
Joe’s father and trainer Enzo Calzaghe has been less charitable. “I know for a fact, he [Hopkins] is a dirty little git,” he told Inside Sport. He said that Hopkins “would rather be disqualified than lose to a true champion like Joe.”
The Italian Dragon is more than aware of the pressure that’s on him - he stands to lose his unbeaten record over a fight which he has had to move up a weight to enter, which Hopkins has announced will be his last. He knows that his opponent is going to go all out to bring him down.
“I’m going to be a legend after this fight,” says Calzaghe. “I’m going there and I’m going to win. Quite simply, you are going to see an awesome performance. This is the night ‘The Executioner’ gets executed.”
Judgement Day will be broadcast live and exclusive on Setanta Sports on Saturday April the 19th, with the ring off currently slated to start at 3am.
