The comparisons are becoming so routine that one can begin considering them cliché – Bernard Hopkins and Brett Favre. Both athletes - who are supposedly well past their primes - have the opportunity to go out on top of their game.

Favre took a Green Bay Packers team, that many considered destined for an early first round draft pick, and had them one game away from the Super Bowl. Although it wasn’t the storybook curtain call that is regularly found in made-for-TV movies, it was about as good as it gets for an athlete his age. His retirement seems genuine but only time will tell if it holds true.

Hopkins has a chance to walk off in glory if he is able to topple undefeated Super Middleweight Joe Calzaghe on April 19th. Obviously Hopkins looks to defy the odds yet again.

“You know, Brett Favre went out on top when he was past his prime,” Hopkins begins when addressing the comparison between he and Farve. “It’s not unusual but it is considered rare because people don’t fight to live to physically be on top of their game unless they embarrass themselves past 35.”

Like many fighters before him, they’ve gone on to take one fight too many and have ended up on the unfavorable side of the decision. Fighters like Ali, Leonard, Tyson, Holmes and others have not been able to ride off in a blaze of glory. Rather, found themselves being disposed of in almost apologetic fashion by their ring counterparts. But Hopkins believes that he is different.

“See, because guys like myself and Brett Favre and other older athletes that came before me we know how to finesse our wins,” Hopkins continues. “When you’re young, you’re running through the door – when you’re older you twist the doorknob then open then walk through. You get smarter. You get more finesse. You get more technical about anything you do because you know that you can’t step on a minefield.”

When talking technical skill, one must admire Hopkins' tremendous ability to not take punishment. Some may see it as an unpopular way to fight, but it has Bernard still fighting – at 43 years of age.

“Look at me, and look at Arturo Gatti,” Hopkins says. “Great man. Love him. But you see him two years from now and he might be eating his meals out of a straw. He put a lot of great performances on but he fought without a defense.”

“To me that’s UFC. That’s not boxing. I’ve never been beat up,” he continues. “I will not be an Arturo Gatti. I will not be a Mickey Ward. I will not be a UFC type of fighter. Don’t let these people tell you to stick your face out and win an award to see who can take the most punches. That’s not boxing. Boxing is an art. The name of the game is to not get hit.”

Hopkins' lifestyle is yet another reason why he has been able to last as long as he has in the ring. Forty-three years of age may seem well over the hill for most athletes. But for Hopkins, he may as well put a new spin on a Jay-Z song and call it “40 Something” because he has made 40 the new 30.

“I’ve sacrificed having fun that I could have had,” Hopkins says as he states that he hasn’t had a drink of alcohol since his teenage years. “There’s been big events that I could have popped a bottle of champagne and my people would have thought it was surprising but said, ‘Hey, he just won a big fight.’ It would have been justified and supported if I had just one glass of champagne. So I had the excuses and temptations to do a lot of things."

“I conditioned myself early. They think that its magic. You know what it is? Discipline.”

Hopkins acknowledges that this is probably the final fight in his career. In Calzaghe, Hopkins finds yet another obstacle that is not in his favor. Like Trinidad, Tarver and Wright before him, Hopkins is staring in the face of adversity once again and is ready to prove that the joke is on us.

“I’m telling you now. Don’t be surprised when I make this look easy and I make him look amateur,” he alludes. “And that’s what I’m going to do but it’s going to be punishment first because that’s in his blood he won’t quit...His father’s going to have to save his son because he loves his son.”

Although being defeated by the younger Jermain Taylor, Hopkins has yet to look like the “old man” many have waited for him to become in his previous fights. It’s not too far-fetched that insiders had Hopkins beating Taylor in both fights. Since then, Hopkins has impressively disposed of both Winky Wright and Antonio Tarver. While the Tarver victory seemed like the perfect swan song to a brilliant career, Hopkins has found motivation in the undefeated champion from Wales.

“I made a career of making people’s mouths drop on super-fights like this,” the fighter known as “The Executioner” jests. “This is something that – this seems to tickle my fancy I’ll say; just something that I like to do. I like to look at some of the media faces when they just look like they’ve just seen Jesus walk on water.”

Hopkins feels that after this impressive victory, he should be thrust into a new category of fighter – Icon.
“What I’m ready to pull off April 19 with another undefeated fighter – remember I destroyed three known Hall of Famer undefeated fighters. Come April 19 people going to have to put me in a whole new different category. Maybe that Icon type thing. The Icon is really special to me. Legend, already got that. Icon is – that’s the climax, you can’t get any higher than that.”

But there is a reason that boxing pundits have found Calzaghe the favorite against the cagy veteran from Philly. The one thing that makes this fight a difficult one for Hopkins is simple – activity.

Calzaghe is known to throw punches in bunches while Hopkins always seems to pace himself like the old man in the park contemplating his next chess move. But Hopkins sees Calzaghe and his quick hands as a welcoming invite to Hopkins putting on yet another impressive display.

“If he throws 1000 punches he’s opening himself up to get hit 1000 times,” Hopkins jests.

“I love a guy that punches because now I don’t have to do too much work like a Winky Wright fight. I gotta get the turtle to stick his head out the shell. This guy likes to fire. He has a high punch output. I love that,” he boasts. “It’s a great opportunity…The more he punches the greater the opportunity and that’s what I like and that’s why I say this is no comparison to fighting a Winky Wright, where you got to figure out the puzzle and try to trick him to punch.”

While many pick this as Hopkins' defining moment, the former middleweight champion hearkens back to September as the fight that he had the most to prove.

“It was tense a moment, but also it was a moment of standing out amongst any possible thing that I can dream of accomplishing on the most important fight, the most important year of my legacy,” he says when reflecting on his domination against then undefeated Felix “Tito” Trinidad. “So it was a thing that I had to fight through adversity. I had to fight through was humanly was normal for anybody to have a letdown. I rose. I (rose) up at the worst case scenario.”

Because of this, Hopkins feels that Calzaghe will be up against something that he’s never dealt with before. It’s that adversity Hopkins was up against with Trinidad that took him out of his comfort zone. But Hopkins overcame the adversity and that is something that he doesn’t think Calzaghe will be able to do.
“It’s going to be totally different (for him when he faces me) and when it becomes different to him the fights over.”

But we’ve all heard the “retirement” stories before. Every athlete claims that there is nothing else to prove, yet finds themselves back in action before you know it. Hopkins claims that his situation is different.
“When I get past Joe Calzaghe I will really, really will have to make a big, big announcement,” Hopkins reveals, alluding to the tearful announcement that the Packers’ #4 made recently. “I ran out of opponents. And when you go look for a fight it’s like being in the neighborhood you normally pick on the person that you shouldn’t have picked on? I’m not going to be in that position because now I’m looking for a fight then having something to fight for. There’s a big difference. And so, you know, whether I want to retire or not I think I’m force to retire because I ran out of opponents.”

Just when those words begin to sink into the psyche, Hopkins slips in. “If I wanted to, I could fight another three or four more years.”

Touche.