Bernard Hopkins thinks some of the sport’s top talents need to spend less time getting into social media spats.
In a recent interview, the Hall of Fame former fighter and current executive at Golden Boy Promotions, took aim at “drama queens” in boxing who repeatedly run the risk of alienating fans.
Hopkins was prompted by a question to consider a potential matchup between his client, Ryan Garcia, and recently-anointed 140-pound titlist Devin Haney.
Victorville, California’s Garcia and Henderson, Nevada’s Haney have publicly traded words in recent weeks, and Golden Boy head Oscar De La Hoya told reporters that he would love to make that fight – even though Garcia has indicated that he’s now targeting Rolando Romero.
But Hopkins, who feuded with Garcia last month ahead of Garcia’s bout with Oscar Duarte, seemed relatively lukewarm about a potential Garcia vs. Haney fight.
“I don’t know,” Hopkins said of the matchup in an interview with FightHype.com. “I think the fans are smart enough to say hey whenever that fight happens, if they want to buy it, they’ll buy it, if they want to be interested in it. …But I think right now the world of boxing fans, casual or hardcore, are basically tired of hearing lip service. I think they now want to hear action. They want to hear more ‘we got signed contracts,’ more than ‘I want to fight [this guy, that guy.]’
“I think the drama queens are starting to get to the point that the fans are getting turned off and they don’t care who they fight or when they fight. And that’s the risk that happens when you make a soap opera out of it. It gets to the point that if you into that, you into that. Don’t get me wrong. Someone’s out there that is into that. I think after a while it gets kind of boring.”
Hopkins declined to predict the winner between Garcia and Haney.
“I don’t know, I think it’s an even fight,” Hopkins said. “I do care from the business side. It can go either way. I think both of them know each other. I think both of them believe they can win. And I think, for boxing, it’s a fight that people can live with, and they can live without.”
Sean Nam is the author of Murder on Federal Street: Tyrone Everett, the Black Mafia, and the Last Golden Age of Philadelphia Boxing.