Bernard Hopkins has given his backing to Golden Boy colleague Oscar De La Hoya in a fantasy fight with Canelo Alvarez.
Hopkins, who became undisputed middleweight champion in 2004 after stopping De La Hoya, is now an integral part of his former rival’s promotional company and he also witnessed the development of Canelo when he fought under De La Hoya’s guidance.
De La Hoya and Canelo no longer work together and in recent years the pair have taken numerous swipes at each other following their bitter split.
Canelo has since pushed on to become undisputed ruler at super-middleweight, but how would he fare facing a prime De La Hoya?
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At his peak, De La Hoya was identified as one of the sport’s best fighters as he racked up many high-profile world title wins across six weight classes.
De La Hoya exited the sport in 2008, following a painful loss to Manny Pacquiao, but Hopkins believes the man from East Los Angeles
“Oscar by decision. He would outbox him, jab him. If you look at me and Oscar’s fight, I knew I was losing that fight and my trainer told me you gotta be the big guy,” said Hopkins when speaking to FightHype.
“I was bigger as far as you know, I’d been at middleweight just about 80% of my career. I had to go ahead and force my will on Oscar and actually get close to Oscar.
“I would hit Oscar with one or two punches, he’d hit me with three, four, five. They didn’t hurt me but they were still adding up and I had to literally go and actually make him fight with me like Canelo would try to do.”
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