IBF and WBA light heavyweight world champion Bernard “The Alien” Hopkins and WBO light heavyweight world champion Sergey “Krusher” Kovalev faced off Thursday inside Caesars Atlantic City’s Circus Maximus Theater for their final press conference before their unification showdown on Saturday at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City live on HBO World Championship Boxing. Kovalev was brief in his comments, while Hopkins rambled for more than 16 minutes.
Sergey Kovalev: This is a huge fight in my career, in my life, against Bernard Hopkins. Bernard Hopkins is a legend. He’s a professor of professional boxing. This fight is dangerous for me but this fight is also dangerous for him…I hope this fight will be very fair, very clean and very honest.
Bernard Hopkins: When I hear ‘You didn’t have to take this fight,’ you think I’m a charity case? …I have no secrets. I’m the cleanest athlete in any sport that’s ever been…I don’t look for favors from nobody, even if I was fighting in Philadelphia. I don’t look for nobody to do nothing for me in this business. I was against the grain from day one in this business and everybody knows. That’s one thing we can’t dispute.
[To kovalev] Trust me. You will never win.
[On Kovalev’s trainer John David Jackson, who Hopkins TKO’d in 1997] The teacher says he knows more about Bernard Hopkins than Bernard Hopkins knows, but the teacher flunked the test!
