“I RESPECT Amir Khan,” says Bernard Hopkins.
“You gotta respect a guy who’s coming up two weight classes, to take on Canelo Alvarez. You gotta respect – you dare to be great – all the fighters out there who dare to be great: don’t talk it, tell whoever’s telling you what to do, you’re a grown man and you’re paying your own bills – and I hope you’re paying your taxes – you must take control of your career. Amir Khan is the first fighter that I’ve seen do that in a long time, as far as the last year or two in boxing business with all the soap-opera stuff to write about.
“If you want to be great, or dare to be great, you do what Amir Khan has done, and no one is going to blame you if you fail, because you didn’t really fail. It’s called credibility in boxing. Do you want to be talked about for a minute, or do you want to be talked about in time?
“This fight is exciting for the division.
“It shows the heart of Amir Khan, a guy that’s willing to go up two weight classes, and cross the street to get there. You have to respect that, and you have to take this guy serious. He had to go against the resistance. He had to have been told ‘No, don’t do that’, right?
“Amir Khan is always a threat, he’s young, he’s not been abused or beat up in the ring, (had) multiple wars, he’s coming in with the concept of being on the sidelines and wanting the big fights for so long with Floyd Mayweather. He’d been wanting him for the last two years, and now that he’s got a fight that can give him that validation, he’s going to be dangerous until the fight’s over with.
“Big is not always better. I was told that when I was in high school, a girl named Brenda: I married her. But it helps if you can fight with the bigness. We all know Canelo is definitely the most powerful of the two. (And) he’s not actually the same style, but the volume of punches remind me of Joe Calzaghe. A guy that swarms you with punches so much that by the time you get your bearings, the fight’s over. Bee stings all over the place. You’re not going to die, you didn’t get hurt, but you’ve got so many bee stings you don’t know where to scratch. You just know you’ve gotta get the hell outta there and jump in some alcohol.
“Canelo wins by knockout, in the ninth or 10th round.”
