John David Jackson: “Bernard Hopkins is an old man, treat him like one. Hit him in his heart, make that heart skip a beat”

The highly anticipated light heavyweight unification between Bernard Hopkins and Sergey Kovalev is now less than a week away. In this special “On The Ropes” interview I speak to one of the trainers involved in the event, that being Sergey Kovalev’s head trainer John David Jackson.

Jackson a former world champion in his own right, and knows Hopkins better than most as he not only trained with and fought Hopkins, but he was also one of Bernard during his light heavyweight title run. Jackson speaks in great detail about the upcoming event, giving his views on how training has gone and how he ultimately believes Kovalev will do against the ageless warrior Bernard Hopkins. Here is what John David Jackson had to say.

Jenna J: You have a big fight coming up with one of your fighters, Sergey Kovalev will be taking on Bernard Hopkins, how do you feel about the fight?

John David Jackson: It’s a good fight, it’s a long time coming for Sergey. It’s a fight that I told Bernard’s people a few years ago to not take, but it’s a fight that had to be made between both contestants. While it’s highly anticipated, it’s definitely a fight that we’re looking forward to having and becoming victorious on the outcome.

Jenna J: How have preparations been going with Sergey? What have you been working on?

John David Jackson: Preparations have been nice. He and I, we got together up in Big Bear, California a few weeks ago. I started doing the tactical work up there with him because as you know, Bernard was my chief sparring partner back when I was champion, back in the early 90’s. I pretty much know Bernard better than anybody else in boxing right now.

Camp has been good, I go over certain things that we look for Bernard to do and certain things that he possibly won’t do. There should be no surprises in this fight. Camp has been going good.

Jenna J: You fought Bernard Hopkins when you were the number one challenger. What is the biggest difference between the Bernard Hopkins of then and now?

John David Jackson: Seventeen years older, seventeen years wiser. He’s craftier but the body’s old. He likes to say he’s an alien now or whatever but you can’t lie, you can’t beat father time and the body’s old. If you watch his last few fights, you can see it in his legs when he’s moving, they’re kind of shaky, they’re not as steady like they once were.

His body is not as strong as it once was and while he’s a crafty veteran — you have to give him credit for what he’s done and the achievements that he has obtained — but he’s old now and you have to treat an old man like an old man. For the younger man who’s hungrier, everything that Bernard has obtained, this kid wants.

Bernard is not living the hard life, he’s very well taken care off, so he’s not as hungry as he once was. That’s the difference of seventeen years later, he’s with Goldenboy, a very powerful promotional boxing company in this day and age, so he doesn’t have to fight the system like he once thought he had to. He’s more corporate than he is anything else.

The thug life has left him, he’s not as hungry as he once was as a fighter. I think it’s more of his ego that wants him to continue. He’s older, he can say he’s not but you can’t beat father time, he’s an old fighter, he fights like an old fighter so you have to treat him like an old fighter.

Jenna J: In recent years Bernard has been a slow starter in a lot of his fights, he got hurt by Jean Pascal early. Do you think it’s best for Sergey to try to jump on him early before he gets started and gets in a groove?

John David Jackson: Not particularly because like you said, Bernard starts slow in all his fights now. That’s why I say it’s a young mans sport, he’s not young anymore. He’s older, he’s smarter and he realizes his body can’t do what it once did, it can’t produce what it once produced.

He has to fight in spurts, he has to fight smart and a lot of these guys that he fights, unfortunately for them, they fall into that trap and they end up fighting at a pace that he wants to fight at — a boring, long, slow, processed pace — but that’s what he wants to do so he can dictate the pace of the fight and the young guys fall right into it.

If you notice in the past few years, only the more athletically built boxers were beating him — Calzaghe, Dawson and for a while Pascal was able to do what he wanted to do but once he spread it out, Bernard took over. In the case of Kovalev, you have a fighter who’s just as athletic as Bernard, more so just because he’s at the beginning of his career, but he’s a bigger puncher than anybody that Bernard’s ever faced.

Bernard’s gonna have to deal with the athleticism that Sergey has and the punching power that he brings into this fight, which Bernard hasn’t really had to face. Dawson was a decent puncher and Pascal was a decent puncher but they don’t posses the one punch knockout power that this kid possesses. That’s gonna be an interesting part of this fight also.

Jenna J: With Sergey Kovalev, his punching power is what separates him from a lot of fighters. He throws his shots and they don’t look like they’re all that but the fighters react, they get knocked out. When you look at other fighter, who would you compare him to in terms of punching power?

John David Jackson: If there’s one knockout puncher I could compare him to, it would be Randall Bailey because Randall Bailey had a right hand that was out of this world. He has tremendous power in his right hand. His left hook was great but he never threw it like he should have, but with the right hand, that’s the only guy that I can really say that in any weight class had the power that Sergey has.

Jenna J: Even though Hopkins is forty nine, if Sergey beats him, do you think Sergey gets full credit due to Bernard’s age?

John David Jackson: You can only give him so much credit but if he does break him down real nice the way no one else has been able to do, then you give him credit for that. It is what it is, Bernard is old, it’s just that nobody is treating him like an old fighter. No one hits him everywhere — hit him in his arm, in his biceps, in his shoulders and his chest. It sounds kind of sick when I say it but hit him in his heart, make that heart skip a beat. He’s an old man, treat him like an old man.

Bernard can still punch, you can’t just sell him lightly, he has a good right hand. Bernard is older, he doesn’t like to say he is but he knows what his body can do and what it can’t do. If he trains super hard for this fight, he’ll leave it all in the gym and if he doesn’t train hard enough, he may not have enough reserve left in his tank if he makes it past the first six rounds.

Jenna J: If you talk to some boxing fans, they will say that the winner of this fight has more of a legitimate claim to being the light heavyweight champion than Adonis Stevenson. What do you think of that, do you think the winner of this fight has more of a claim than Adonis?

John David Jackson: Most definitely because you have three of the four belts and the winner will not only have more of a claim to it, he’ll have the upper hand in the negotiations of where the fight will be held and who gets the most money.

Adonis is a very good puncher, I’ve trained Adonis a while back, he’s a very good puncher but that’s mainly it. As long as he doesn’t connect you with his right hand because he has dynamite in it, other than that, he’s lacking in footwork. In his last fight he didn’t look so good and maybe that was because his opponent was very tough. But the winner of this fight definitely has the upper hand in a lot of categories.