FRANK HOPKINS says his rates are as followsโฆ โItโs ยฃ5 for an autograph, ยฃ10 for a selfie and ยฃ100 for an interview. But youโre a friend, so itโs ยฃ50 to youโฆโ
Iโm one of many friends Hopkins has in boxing and many more want to know his story after the 75-year-old from Portsmouth was given the job of being Tyson Furyโs cut-man for the Dillian Whyte fight this month.
Jorge Capetillo, who helped Fury get through the Otto Wallin fight in September, 2019 after he suffered wounds that needed 47 stitches, is unable to make the trip to London and Hopkins takes his place.
โPeople in their thirties will be saying, how come that old manโs got the job?โ said Hopkins. โThe reason is, Iโve been doing it for a long time and thereโs nothing I havenโt seen. Iโve had fighters come back [to the corner] with their eyes shut and I remember Jazza Dickensโ jaw falling in half in my hand in the [Guillermo] Rigondeaux fight [in July, 2016]. I kept calm and called the referee over.
โI donโt panic. I just get in there and do the job, whether itโs a four-rounder at the York Hall or a world-title fight.โ
Fury-Whyte will be the 38th world-title fight Hopkins has worked on, and he says that Terry Flanagan gave him some of his busiest nights. โI remember Terry coming back to his corner once and he had a horrendous cut on his head that went to his skull,โ said Hopkins. โHe asked how bad it was and I told him: โThereโs nothing there. Donโt worry about. Just get on with winning the fight.โ He went on and won the fight. He got cut to ribbons against Regis Prograis in New Orleans as well. He lost that one, but I got him through it.โ
Hopkins says he got to know Fury after a Flanagan fight. โIโve never worked with Tyson before,โ he said, โbut Iโve been in the same changing room as him โ and weโve had a few beers together as well. I was working with Terry at a fight in Manchester and when I went back to the hotel, Tyson was there with his dad, his wife and Billy Joe Saunders.
โI started chatting to them and we ended up taking a crate of beer up to my room. We stayed up all night drinking and talking about boxing and horses. It was a good laugh.โ
Hopkins says working with Fury is โthe pinnacleโ of a career that started with his nephew, Tony Oakey.
โI was always a big fan of boxing,โ he said. โIโve always made decent money as a car dealer and horse dealer and if there was a big fight in the States, I would go.
โThat would be my holiday, going to watch Lennox Lewis or Prince Naseem [Hamed]. I went to watch Lennox and Frank Maloney was in the bar one night. I told him my nephew, Tony Oakey, had won the ABAs and he was going to win them again. He gave me his card and it went from there.
โI was a car dealer and a horse dealer. I didnโt even know how to put a pair of gloves on a fighter. Frank said, Why donโt you do Tonyโs cuts? I asked Dennie Mancini to teach me and he said, Why would I teach you my job?
โI told him I was only going to work with Tony and he said, come and sit alongside me, and thatโs what I did. I did that for six months and then Dennie retired and gave me all his kit.โ
Oakey gave Hopkins some of his most memorable nights, along with Jamie Moore. He rates Mooreโs battle with Matthew Macklin in September, 2006 as the best fight he has worked on.
โIt was a humdinger,โ said Hopkins of Mooreโs violent victory. โAnd three years later I was in Atlantic City with Jamie Moore when he was training Macklin. What a turnaround โ but thatโs boxing.โ
Hopkins has seen most things in boxing and rates unbeaten featherweight Ryan Garner as โgood as anyone Iโve had in the last 30 years.โ He added: โItโs a good story isnโt it? One of us is good-looking and charismatic and the other oneโs got no looks or charisma at all. Weโre the odd couple, arenโt we?โ
Garner knows which half of the odd couple he is and responds that Hopkins is โan idiotโฆ but a legend.โ
Hopkins also works with the Chamberlain brothers, Mark and Jamie, who kept him busy at the York Hall last month.
โAfter the first round, Jamieโs left eye was cut and then his right eye went in the second,โ said Hopkins. โHe came back after the third and his nose was bleeding. I said to him, Stop coming back looking like this! Keep your hands up!โ
Hopkins will be back at the York Hall six days after Fury-Whyte, working with the Frankham cousins, Josh, Levi and Charles. โIโve got six children and 48 grandchildren and great grandchildren,โ he said, โso every Christmas my wife says she needs ยฃ2,000 for presents. Two weeks later itโs: โHave you got another ยฃ2,000โ and two weeks after that she asks again.
โSo you see, Iโve got to keep working.โ