Hopkins Becomes Oldest Champion at 46 at BetLM

Hopkins Becomes Oldest Champion at 46

MONTREAL —Bernard Hop­kins became the old­est fighter to win a major world cham­pi­onship, tak­ing the WBC light heavy­weight title Sat­ur­day night from Jean Pas­cal at the age of 46.

Hop­kins (52–5–2) broke the age record set by George Fore­man in a heavy­weight title vic­tory over Michael Moorer in 1994. Hop­kins won at 46 years, 4 months, 6 days. Fore­man was 45 years, 10 months.

“I won’t retire until I’m 50,” Hopkins said.

He won the WBC, IBO and The Ring mag­a­zine titles from the 28-year-old Pas­cal (26–2–1), the Mon­treal fighter who was mak­ing his fifth defense before 17,560 at the Bell Centre.

The bout was a rematch of their Dec. 18 draw in Quebec City.

“He’s a great cham­pion. He has great defense and a lot of tricks. I was a young cham­pion,” Pas­cal said of Hop­kins in the ring after­ward. “These two fights will help take me to the next level. I learned a lot from Bernard and his style.”

The Philadel­phia native played up his uncanny fit­ness in the pre-fight ban­ter and looked the fresher man through­out the bout, taunt­ing Pas­cal by doing push-ups as he waited for him to start the sev­enth round and doing them again after the fight.

Hop­kins landed more punches and was able to slip many of Pascal’s power shots, answer­ing with clever jabs and scor­ing more than once on right-hand leads.

Hop­kins didn’t, as planned, wear a Philadel­phia Fly­ers jer­sey into the ring, but one of his cor­ner men did.

In the co-feature, Chad Daw­son showed mas­ter­ful defense and crisp punch­ing in scor­ing a 12-round unan­i­mous deci­sion over Montreal’s Adrian Dia­conu in a light heavy­weight elimination bout.

Hop­kins will next fight Dawson (30–1).

Related Posts:

• Hop­kins Beats Pas­cal, Breaks Foreman’s Record
• Hop­kins to Wear Fly­ers Jer­sey into Ring
• New Cham­pion Hop­kins Isn’t Done Yet
• Age Rel­a­tive to Vet­eran Box­ers Hop­kins, Johnson
• Bernard Hop­kins: A Man in Love with His Own Voice

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