After his career defining win last September 29th over Felix Trinidad, you would have thought that Bernard Hopkins, who became the undisputed middleweight champion of the world with that victory, would ride off into the sunset with a series of big-fights and accolades, finding contentment in what had often been a contentious career.

Instead, he's found anything but contentment, and some of the moves he's made post-Trinidad have boxing observers shaking their heads in disbelief. He remains boxing's angry man, boxing's maverick, who not only marches to the beat of his own drummer, but his own marching band.

As of now it looks like Hopkins will be shunning HBO for a three-fight package with rival Showtime. Instead of training for a rematch with either Trinidad or Roy Jones (more on that later), he is putting together a quick mini-training camp in Philadelphia for an August 17th date with the unknown Morrade Hakkar. For Hopkins this unusual move is a matter of pride. Consequences be damned - and he knows the consequences.

"I don't care if I don't fight Oscar De La Hoya, I don't care if I ever fight Roy, I don't care if I ever fight anybody over at HBO - period," states Hopkins. "That covers all tracks. I've said this before and I'll say it again: I'm glad I could be, out of all the fighters that can't say what I'm getting ready to say - I'm glad I can say today that I don't need boxing to feed my family anymore. So I want them to call my bluff on that. So I don't have to worry anymore about the other side of the street now. I don't have to worry about Kery Davis (V.P. of HBO Sports) being Roy Jones' 'manager', making decisions and speaking up for Roy and saying what Roy wants to do and won't do. You say you're TV guys, you say you're not promoters, so I don't have to worry about that headache no more."

The 'other side of the street' is HBO and its brass, who Hopkins thinks has been giving him the runaround and not the proper respect due to him. Hopkins knows he is paying an economic price by not signing with HBO, but believes that it's worth his peace of mind to know just when and where he'll be fighting in the near future. His deal with Showtime reportedly has him facing WBO super-middleweight titlist Joe Calzaghe in January and then Harry Simon, the current WBO middleweight king, in the spring of 2003.

"I've paid the extra money not to go through the hassle and the bulls**t," continued Hopkins. "I know where my next three fights are coming from if everybody stays healthy, and of course I have to continue to win and Calzaghe has to continue to win. This is something I've never had in my career - a peace of mind of knowing that hey, I'm locked in to a certain number of fights. My wife and I want to go on a vacation, fine, let's go in November or December. The luxury to my family of mapping out a time frame of boxing has never been stable with me and unfortunately everybody else that's a key fighter has a plan before he even goes into the ring.

"Lennox Lewis and Roy Jones know when they're fighting; Shane Mosley knew when he was fighting; Fernando Vargas, you don't think he knew when he was fighting? Oscar De La Hoya and them knew when they were fighting. Bernard Hopkins got to wait by the goddamn phone as the undisputed middleweight champion of the world and find out like he's a four, six or eight round fighter.

For all that, I'm glad to give up two, three million that I'm not getting. I'm glad to give up that type of money to have the peace of mind so when a reporter calls me and asks me when I'm fighting, I can have an idea. That's something to look forward to.

"This is part of the price to make Bernard Hopkins who he is. Hey, I'm not bitter, I'm just a person that feels that, I do not turn the other cheek, I've been brought up differently in my family. I've been brought up in a whole new different culture and whole new different religion. I do believe in forgiving a person but I do not believe in turning the other cheek."

Hopkins has always been the suspicious type, not trusting of too many people and always believing that somebody or something is out to get him. The same traits that he once had as a street thug and then into the state pen, still fuel him to this day as a prizefighter. Having made the money he has or living comfortably in Delaware hasn't really changed the core essence of Hopkins. He is who he is, and he wouldn't have it any other way. The word 'complacency' isn't in his vocabulary.

"It's like if you came in my house and I'm sleeping and my daughter's asleep and somehow from the grace of God or just the timing of me turning over while I'm sleeping and I realize I got someone standing over me while I'm sleeping and somehow that weapon fell out of that particular persons hand," narrated Hopkins of how he views his adversaries in boxing. "Now, we're scuffling on the floor in the bedroom and I become the hunter. Don't call the ambulance - call the coroner. Because now he's begging for his family, he's begging why he's in my house, he's begging why he attempted to do something. He wants me to spare his life, to give him a chance. He's sorry because now I'm the man with the gun and now he's the rabbit. Call the coroner, don't call the ambulance, don't even call the cops.

"I feel the same way about 'the guys across the street', I feel that same way about the same guys who tried to derail my career from day one. So now, after September 29th, when I f**ked up a lot of millions - and you know I did, I will not be humble, I will not be merciful and I will not turn the other cheek to those who never wanted me to win. That's HBO, that's Madison Square Garden, that's Seth Abraham. There's a lot of other people around me, I found out, that felt the same way too. They wanted me to grab the quick money and go about their business. So now that I survived that storm, don't call the ambulance - call the coroner."

But remember, he's not bitter.

So it looks inevitable (at least as of this moment) that Hopkins will be content to go after his goal of 20 successful middleweight title defenses, a mark he says will take at least a hundred years to break. But not before there was one last-ditch effort to make a rematch with Jones. Jones, who is scheduled to face Clinton Woods on September 7th in Portland, Oregon, made a personal call to Hopkins.

"Kery Davis put out the call to Arnold Joseph, my attorney, and said, 'Look, let them talk', so HBO's helping Roy clean up his image because they're going to be embarrassed by this whole situation," explained Hopkins."So Kery Davis played a role in talking with Arnold and Arnold got in touch with me. I wasn't going to do it at first and then I said, what the hell. I said,' Arnold, you know when I do this, it's going to be a situation where they're gonna come out and say that Roy talked to Bernard personally on the phone and Bernard still turned down the fight'. I said to be prepared for that but I'm willing to be prepared for it. I'm not afraid of Roy, so I talked to him on the phone and said,' Let's do it'. So when Roy got on the phone, Roy is intimidated by Bernard Hopkins. I never heard Roy stutter before, but he sounded like Bugs Bunny."

Uhhh, don't you mean Porky Pig? "Yeah, yeah, that's right, Porky Pig."

"Roy called and said, 'How much do you want? Is six million not enough?' I said, 'No, are you insane?' He said, 'Ok, I'll call you back'. He called me back, he said,' What do you want?' I said,' I want $10 million going into the ring'. He asked,' Well, who's gonna pay Don King?' I said, 'Who's gonna pay Don? Who's gonna be the promoter?' He said, 'Well, me and Don'. 'You and Don?' 'Well, Murad and Don'. I said, 'Square Ring and Don?' and he said,'Yeah'. I said, 'Well, Don makes his money as a promoter, but if you're asking me what I want to go in the ring, I want $10 million, I'll deal with my promoter about the pay-per-view money. Don't worry about my business.'

"I think Roy wanted to find out how much I knew about the business, compared to thinking he knew everything. So when he knew that, he was like, 'I feel you man, I feel you' and we hung up the phone. And I never heard from him again. So Roy Jones runs out and says he offered me $10 million but Don wants at least four or five million of that, so now we're back down to the 60-40. So when Roy said take care of Don King and if you read some of the statements of Murad Muhammad, which were two to three weeks ago, he said, 'Hey, we're not going to pay Don and Bernard $10 million.' So why are they trying to make it look like I'm turning down $10 million?"

Hopkins believes that all this was done to camouflage what will be taking place on September 7th.

"This is the spin doctoring that Roy Jones is trying to put on it because when it gets closer to September, everybody's going to be hounding him about Clinton Woods and he's gotta have something in reserve to say,' Hey, y'all calm down for a minute. I offered Bernard Hopkins good money plenty of times, I offered him $10 million, I offered him this.' So he's building that excuse up so when September comes, the ones that want to follow Roy's illusion, they're going to buy it. Most of them though, are not going to buy it. Everybody knows I would fight Roy at the drop of a dime for $10 million. If he comes close to that, I'll fight Roy."

So what else is there left to be said about the Hopkins-Jones saga? Well, in the immortal words of Porky Pig, " Bb, bb, bb, th, th, that's all folks."

CALZAGHE-HOPKINS

Hopkins says he has no problems with going across the pond to take on Calzaghe on his home turf.

"The money that they're talking, the pay-per-view numbers they're talking, man, I'd be a fool not to go over there," said Hopkins. "No problem, I'm not Roy. The only way I won't go to Wales is if they tell me that the ring will be a triangle."

NOT-SO-HEAVYWEIGHTS

John Ruiz and Kirk Johnson lived down to some pretty low expectations this past weekend. In fact it was by far, the worst heavyweight fight of the weekend.

Frans Botha and Cliff Etienne, as expected, put on an entertaining barroom brawl that ended in a ten-round draw and prospect DaVarryl Williamson showed plenty of guts, courage and moxie in stopping the gargantuan Corey 'T-Rex' Sanders in five rounds.

I'll reserve judgment on Larry Holmes' ten-round win over Butterbean, but it's hard to imagine that being any worse than what we saw on HBO.

HBO should have been embarrassed with this main event. If they just would have stuck to their own party line of not buying these supposed 'bogus' title fights, they would have saved themselves the hassle of showing this debacle. I ask, would they had bought Ruiz-Johnson if the WBA title were not attached to it?

POUND FOR POUND

IBF bantamweight champion Tim Austin reaffirmed his status as one of the game's best performers with a skillful exhibition of boxing/punching against Adan Vargas - who only loses to world class fighters. Austin has been lost in the shuffle while being part of the Don King-dom, that often treats it's smaller fighters like paupers and not princes.

The shame of it all is that it's doubtful that he'll ever get his shot at the Paulie Ayalas, Erik Moraleses and Bones Adamses of the world - afterall, why wouldn't Bob Arum, who seemingly represents most of the blue-chip talent from 122-126, want to keep these matchups in-house?

But a bout against his mandatory, Rafael Marquez (another Arum boxer) looks to be an outstanding fight.

SHOBOX

ShoBox celebrated it's one year anniversary in style with a pair of entertaining slugfests.

First, super middleweight Yusef Mack pounded out a fourth round stoppage of John McKinney and veteran lightweight Lamar Murphy bludgeoned Dairo Esalas over eight rounds. All in all, a good show which was full of action.

The word in the industry is that Main Events (which promoted this show) will no longer be doing ShoBox telecasts after this summer with Gary Shaw (formerly of Main Events) launching his own company and getting some dates, and the fact that the Showtime brass was a bit miffed that Main Events actually had the nerve to stand up for Lennox Lewis during the Lewis-Tyson negotiations. How dare they?

Now they get punished for it by no longer getting ShoBox telecasts. Which is a shame since Carl Moretti and his staff did a pretty good job considering that they were working on a very limited budget.

PROSPECTS

Elvir Muriqi showed this past Tuesday night that while he may not be the most naturally talented prospect out there, he does have the guts to make a mark. 'The Kosovo Kid', who is trained by Teddy Atlas, got off the canvas four times in the first two rounds to stop Sammy Ahmad in the third round of their scheduled dime.

Muriqi has more holes defensively than Swiss cheese, but he has grown by leaps and bounds from his breakdown against Danny Sheehan a few years back.

On the flip side, 'The Hawaiian Punch', Brian Viloria, is quickly becoming one of the early professional stars of the 2000 Olympic class. Despite having his bout on Friday night stopped due to an accidental clash of heads, he was dominating Alberto Rossel over the first three rounds of their fight in West Virginia on FNF.

Viloria could be the one of the very first Olympians to capture a major world title. His defense, ring generalship and counterpunching have improved by leaps and bounds over the past 12 months.

FINAL FLURRIES

Hey, anybody up for Hopkins-Robert Allen III? Didn't think so.... Is it just me, or would anyone else like to see Showtime's Jim Gray interview someone in the NBA or the Olympics as harshly as he conducts his interviews in boxing? He treated Elmo Adolph (who admittedly dropped the ball in Botha-Etienne) like he was Pete Rose or something....It's seems to me that Gray is a lot braver on boxing telecasts than he is for any other sport he covers. The downright disrespect he shows to boxers sometimes is sickening... I guess he only does his puff-jobs on the NBA and figure skating.