Bernard Hopkins

Bernard Hopkins Jr. was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 15 January 1965 and grew up in the Raymond Rosen housing project.¹² He was a Philadelphia junior Golden Gloves champion at nine, but turned to crime as a teenager, was stabbed three times, and at 17 was sentenced to 18 years in Graterford Prison for nine felonies.¹ He served almost five years, was released in 1988, and turned to boxing as an escape from his previous life.¹ He won the vacant IBF middleweight title in 1995, defended the title 20 times, unified the division in 2001 and became the undisputed middleweight champion in 2004 as the first boxer to hold the WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO titles at once.¹ At light heavyweight he beat Jean Pascal in 2011 to become, at 46, the oldest world champion in boxing history, and he won further titles at 48 and 49 before his final bout in 2016.¹ His career record is 55 wins (32 by knockout), 8 losses and 2 draws.¹

Hopkins made his professional debut in October 1988, lost it, and after resuming as a middleweight in February 1990 won 21 bouts without a loss.¹ He lost an IBF title bout to Roy Jones Jr. in 1993, then took the vacant IBF middleweight title against Segundo Mercado in April 1995.¹ He unified the division by beating Keith Holmes and Félix Trinidad in 2001 and added the WBO title against Oscar De La Hoya in 2004, losing the titles to Jermain Taylor in 2005.¹ He later held light-heavyweight titles against Antonio Tarver, Jean Pascal, Tavoris Cloud and Beibut Shumenov, and became a minority partner in Golden Boy Promotions.¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum. The English article states that after his release from prison in 1988 Hopkins converted to Islam, and it names no school for him.¹ The Arabic article's infobox gives his religion as Islam and its lead calls him an American Muslim boxer.³ Wikidata's only religion value for him is Islam, generically, with no references.² Because conversion reporting and public practice are not an attestation of a school, his school is recorded in the museum's data as unknown.¹³²

• Bernard Hopkins — English Wikipedia¹
• Bernard Hopkins — Arabic Wikipedia³
• Bernard Hopkins — Wikidata Q531804²