Bernard Hopkins

Bernard Hopkins Jr, known as the Executioner (born January 15, 1965, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American boxer. He is a former Undisputed World Middleweight Champion, and the first fighter to retain all 4 world titles of each major boxing sanctioning body, plus the Ring Magazine belt, in the same fight. Having defended a world middleweight title for a record 20 times, he is considered one of the greatest middleweights of all time. The current Ring Magazine, World Boxing Council, and International Boxing Organization Light Heavyweight Champion, he is the oldest boxer ever to win a world title.
Back ground
Born to Bernard Hopkins, Sr. and his wife Sue, Bernard grew up in the Raymond Rosen projects with his family. Hopkins turned to crime early in his life. By the age of thirteen he was mugging people and had been stabbed three times. At seventeen, Hopkins was sentenced to 18 years in Graterford Prison for nine felonies. While in prison he witnessed rapes and the murder of another inmate in an argument over a pack of cigarettes, but also discovered his passion for boxing. After serving almost five years, Hopkins was released from prison in 1988, decided to use boxing as an escape from his previous life, and converted to Islam. While leaving the prison for the final time, the warden told Hopkins he'd "see [Hopkins] again when you wind up back here," to which Hopkins replied "I ain't ever coming back here

Professional career

He immediately joined the professional boxing ranks as a light heavyweight, losing his debut on October 11, 1988, in Atlantic City, New Jersey to Clinton Mitchell. After a sixteen-month layoff, he resumed his career as a middleweight, winning a unanimous decision over Greg Paige at the Blue Horizon on February 22, 1990.

Between February 1990 and September 1992, Hopkins scored 20 wins without a loss. He won 15 of those fights by knockout, 11 coming in the first round.

Winning the IBF middleweight championship

The IBF came again knocking at Hopkins's door on December 17 of that year, matching him with Segundo Mercado in Mercado's hometown of Quito, Ecuador. Mercado knocked Hopkins down twice before Hopkins rallied late and earned a draw. This was the first and only knock down of Hopkins's career until he fought Jean Pascal in 2010. It has been argued that Hopkins was also not properly acclimated to the altitude of nearly 10,000 feet.

The IBF called for an immediate rematch, and on April 29, 1995, Hopkins became a world champion with a seventh-round technical knockout victory in Landover, Maryland.

In his first title defense he defeated Steve Frank, whom he stopped in twenty-four seconds. By the end of 2000, he had defended the IBF title 12 times without a loss, while beating such standouts as John David Jackson, Glen Johnson (undefeated at the time and later went on to knock out an aging Roy Jones Jr), Simon Brown, and Antwun Echols.

reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Hopkins