Age Relative to Veteran Boxers Hopkins, Johnson at LinesMaker

NEW YORK —Age has always been a rel­a­tive con­cept in boxing.

Many fight­ers are shot by the time they’re 30, the accu­mu­la­tion of punches
from all the bloody brawls tak­ing their toll. They’re a bit slower, a bit
heav­ier, a shell of a once-proud fighter try­ing to hang around for one last
pay­day under the lights.

Then there’s Bernard Hop­kins and Glen Johnson.

Hop­kins won the light heavy­weight title at age 46 on May 21, sup­plant­ing
George Fore­man as the old­est boxer to win a major cham­pi­onship. On Sat­ur­day
night, the 42-year-old John­son meets Carl Froch for the 168-pound title in
Atlantic City, N.J.

“I know there are peo­ple still skep­ti­cal about what I can do at my age, but
I actu­ally get excited when peo­ple men­tion my age and focus on my age,” John­son
said this week. “That means they are not focused on my skills and what I bring
to the table.”

Make no mis­take, the table is full.

Hop­kins and John­son are tac­ti­cians, defen­sive geniuses as adept at
side­step­ping punches as they are deliv­er­ing them—even though most fans would
pre­fer sheer recklessness.

They’re cere­bral fight­ers, an oxy­moron to those who believe the sport is
lit­tle more than an act of bar­barism. They study their oppo­nents the way a
finan­cial plan­ner might exam­ine the tax code, look­ing for loop­holes that they
can exploit for their benefit.

Per­haps most impor­tantly, they take care of them­selves out­side the ring.

They stay in shape between fights, eat­ing the right food and hit­ting the
gym, which makes it eas­ier to sharpen their skills once train­ing camp starts.
They’ve also steered clear of vices, the drink­ing and drugs that have wrecked so
many careers and lives.

“Peo­ple ask, ‘What’s your secret?“‘ said Hop­kins, who got a late start in
box­ing after he was con­victed at age 17 of rob­bery and assault, and spent nearly
five years in prison.

“They’re wait­ing for me to say, ‘I’m that good,’ but I am here because I
invested in myself and made a deter­mi­na­tion not to get caught up in the high
life of being a celebrity,” Hop­kins said. “You have to treat your­self like a
tem­ple.”

The fighter from Philadel­phia once made a record 20 con­sec­u­tive defenses of
the mid­dleweight title, set­ting a stan­dard that may never be approached. Hop­kins
was voted Fighter of the Year by the Box­ing Writ­ers’ Asso­ci­a­tion of Amer­ica way
back in 2001—a full decade ago—and moved up to cap­ture the light heavy­weight
title for the first time five years ago.

Then came a close, split-decision loss to Joe Calza­ghe in 2008, and an
unin­spir­ing vic­tory over Enrique Ornelas a year later. By the time he fought Roy
Jones Jr. for the sec­ond time in April 2010, “The Exe­cu­tioner” appeared to be
near­ing the end of his career.

But in his most impres­sive per­for­mance in years, he boxed cir­cles around
28-year-old Jean Pas­cal in his home­town of Mon­treal. Not only did Hop­kins win
the fight on all three judges’ score­cards, he also earned the grudg­ing respect
of his biggest critics.

“Bernard fought a won­der­ful fight,” John­son said. “I knew he was
def­i­nitely going to win the fight, but I didn’t know if he was going to get a
deci­sion. Kudos to him.

“He’s def­i­nitely an inspi­ra­tion to us old guys.”

John­son has inspired plenty of peo­ple in his own right.

Nick­named “The Road War­rior” for his will­ing­ness to fight any­where, the
smil­ing, ami­able native of Jamaica unsuc­cess­fully chal­lenged for world titles in
1997 (against Hop­kins), 1999 and 2003 before finally break­ing through the
sport’s upper echelons.

Con­sider it evi­dence that he’s only get­ting bet­ter with age.

“He’s been there, done that, seen every style there is to see and dealt
with every style and pretty much beat every style,” said his trainer, Orlando
Cuel­lar.

John­son fought Chad Daw­son, one of the sport’s biggest tal­ents, to a pair of
close losses over the past few years. Then he dropped down to 168 pounds as a
late replace­ment in the Super Six World Box­ing Clas­sic, and routed a younger
Allan Green last November.

Now he’s fac­ing Froch in the tour­na­ment semi­fi­nals, with a date against
Andre Ward—a 27-year-old fighter— await­ing the winner.

“An old man (recently) showed us what’s pos­si­ble when there’s still some
great­ness left in an old body, and there’s still some great­ness left in this
man,” said Johnson’s pro­moter, Lou DiBella, refer­ring to Hop­kins’ resound­ing
vic­tory and his own fighter’s title shot.

“He’s really, in a bizarre way, in his prime at 42 years old.”