The 49 year-old unified title holder went up against Jackson way back in 1997 as Hopkins stopped him to successfully defend his middleweight world title and ‘The Alien’ is unfazed by any plan his opponent’s trainer may have in place to end his reign.
“It’s not a personal challenge to me – John David Jackson,” said Hopkins. “First of all, John David Jackson, I always said, is one of the elite trainers out there who never really got his respect and November 8th he wants to get that big boost to get that respect. But, again, maybe John David Jackson will show him the fight that we fought and realize that he didn’t have the code to beat “The Executioner” at the time and now it’s “The Alien.” So, maybe John realized how he should have ducked or how he should have fought at that time.
“But to me, John isn’t fighting, John isn’t in the ring. You have to give the information to the athlete, the athlete has to be able to take that information, and be able to use it to his best ability. Let’s see if can he do that, because John David Jackson definitely can’t fight for him. John David Jackson had his chance. John David Jackson got knocked out, I believe, in the seventh round. So, to me how can a teacher teach a student and the teacher flunked the test too?”
Jackson has helped Kovalev to amass an eye-popping record of 23 KO’s from 25 wins since the Russian made the switch to the US and will be looking to exact his revenge on Hopkins this weekend in Atlantic City.
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