Philadelphia Honors Native Champ Hopkins at LinesMaker

PHILADELPHIA —Bernard Hop­kins has a lot in com­mon with Rocky Balboa.

Both are Philly fight­ers who keep throw­ing punches long after a career (or
film fran­chise) should be finished.

Hop­kins, though, doesn’t need a movie script to tell him who wins. He writes
his own story.

Like Bal­boa, Hop­kins landed tri­umphantly at the bot­tom of the Philadel­phia
Museum of Art steps.

Hop­kins was hon­ored by Mayor Michael Nut­ter at the base of the “Rocky“
statue out­side the museum near the steep steps made famous by the box­ing films
for win­ning the WBC light heavy­weight championship.

Hop­kins’ life could eas­ily turn into a movie. He served five years in state
prison before he moved on to a per­fect 10-year run in the mid­dleweight divi­sion.
Hop­kins became the old­est fighter to win a major world cham­pi­onship, tak­ing the
WBC light heavy­weight title May 21 from Jean Pas­cal at the age of 46.

The city where he was born and raised paid trib­ute to Hop­kins on Wednes­day
in a cer­e­mony hon­or­ing the career of the great­est fighter to call Philadel­phia
home since for­mer heavy­weight cham­pion Joe Frazier.

“The real rea­son that Bernard Hop­kins is a hero is because he is a sur­vivor
and a real-life exam­ple of what it means to be given a sec­ond chance,” Nut­ter
said.

Hop­kins pre­sented Hop­kins with a mini replica of the Lib­erty Bell—leave it
to a boxer to get his bell rung—and saluted the champ for his accom­plish­ments
over a 23-year career and his con­tri­bu­tions to Philadelphia.

Hop­kins owns a condo in Philadel­phia, and still runs the “Rocky” steps and
trains for fights in the city.

He dethroned George Fore­man as the old­est boxer to win a world title when he
beat Pas­cal. Fore­man was 45 years, 10 months when he knocked out heavy­weight
cham­pion Michael Moorer in 1994. Hop­kins was 46 years, four months and six days
in his bout with Pascal.

Fic­tion or not, Hop­kins found a kin­dred spirit in Sylvester Stallone’s
por­trayal of Bal­boa. The box­ing movies moti­vated Hop­kins to ded­i­cate him­self to
this sport.

He wanted to run the steps Bal­boa ran. He had to fol­low the path through the
Ital­ian Mar­ket that Stal­lone set in the first movie. He wanted to prove no one
should count out a Philly underdog.

“This is a blue-collar town. It’s always been, it always will be,” Hop­kins
said. “When you say Philadel­phia, you say tough town.”

None tougher these days than Hopkins.

Hop­kins called the cer­e­mony an event he won’t for­get. He said he wants to
con­tinue to make the city proud and has no imme­di­ate plans to retire.

While some of Philadelphia’s top stars from pre­vi­ous gen­er­a­tions have
stat­ues or other forms of recog­ni­tion at the sports com­plex, no real fight­ers
have been immor­tal­ized in bronze. Fra­zier and Hop­kins surely deserve a spot
some­where.

Don’t look for Hop­kins to stump for one.

“The statue is only a sym­bol of the Rocky movies,” Hop­kins said. “I was
hon­ored to be here near the Rocky steps. I don’t think it should be any­where
else.”