George Foreman: Bernard Hopkins might 'box till he's 60' - latimes.com:
Foreman said the difference between him and Hopkins is that Hopkins has never stopped.
"He's just gone on with the training, the sparring. He's stayed in condition," Foreman said. "The thing that drives a boxer is that basic fear. It wakes you up in the middle of the night, just thinking that there is somebody out there who can beat you. Boxers never sleep well. You stay desperate. You see that Cadillac in the window and you want it.
"Then you quit, and in two or three years, you find that normal sleep. When I went back to boxing, my wife was afraid to sleep with me. I was edgy and up in the middle of the night and growling."
Foreman said that you can't get the edge back right away and that, before he made his comeback, he studied all those who had tried one before him.
"I read all the books," he said. "Joe Louis, Frazier, Ali. The only reservation I had was guys who tried to come back where they had stopped. They wanted to fight all the big fights right away. But time doesn't stop. The timing of the jab isn't quite there. The reach is different, the defense. And all the old trainers who used to help you are gone."
Foreman started back slowly. He didn't take a title shot until 24 fights, and four years, into his comeback. He lost that one by decision to Evander Holyfield in 1991 and didn't get another world title chance until 1994, when he beat Moorer. That made it 21 years between winning titles. When he beat Moorer, he defended his title successfully three times before Shannon Briggs finally put a stop to the nonsense in 1997.
Hopkins is defending his title just five months after winning it, and Foreman likes that.
"I think he can box till he's 60," Foreman said.
Foreman lives in Houston now, is an ordained minister with his own church, and pays the bills quite easily with the couple hundred million dollars he made as spokesman for the George Foreman Grill.
Hopkins remains the pride of Philadelphia, has an equity stake in Oscar De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions, and pays the bills quite easily by enticing younger men into the ring with him and then punching their lights out.
Foreman and Hopkins are quite a pair. Think of them as the fine wine of a sport that has always been mostly a shot and a beer.
BILL DWYRE
bill.dwyre@latimes.com
Copyright © 2011, Los Angeles Times
'via Blog this' 
