Ex” Marks Spot: Ageless Hopkins makes history at Barclays
Age ain’t nothin’ but a number.
Bernard “The Executioner” Hopkins is living proof of the above R&B lyric, a point he drove home in historic fashion Saturday night at Downtown’s Barclays Center before a rapt and at-time raucous audience of Brooklyn boxing enthusiasts.
By dethroning previously undefeated light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud (24-1, 19 KOs) — a fighter nearly two decades his junior — “B-Hop!” shattered his own mark as the oldest holder of a significant title in the long history of pro boxing at the not-so-tender age of 48, grabbing Cloud’s IBF belt with a combination of ring generalship, cunning guile and brute force.