Brooklyn, NY (Sports Network) – IBF Light Heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins will return to the ring at Barclays Center to defend his title against No. 1 contender Karo Murat.<\/p>\n
The bout is scheduled for Saturday, July 13.<\/p>\n
The 48-year-old Hopkins (53-6-2, 32 KO) will become the oldest fighter in history to make his initial title defense. He defeated Travis Cloud at Barclays Center back in March to win the belt.<\/p>\n
“Murat has nothing to lose and everything to gain by fighting me,” said Hopkins. “He knows he is fighting a 48-year-old, but he has to understand that there aren’t any other 48-year-olds like me. I keep saying ‘I’m different’ because it is true and I’m going to prove it once again on July 13. I don’t know a lot about Murat, which makes him a dangerous competitor, but after over two decades in this sport, there isn’t anything I haven’t seen, so I plan on showing the world that I can face anyone at any time and be victorious.”<\/p>\n
Hopkins is the longest reigning middleweight champion in boxing history, and since reinventing himself as a light heavyweight following his 40th birthday, he has captured three world titles.<\/p>\n
The 29-year-old Murat (25-1-1, 15 KO) has won several regional titles since becoming a pro in 2006. It’s been nearly three years since his only loss, which occurred against Nathan Cleverly in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brooklyn, NY (Sports Network) – IBF Light Heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins will return to the ring at Barclays Center to defend his title against No. 1 contender Karo Murat. The bout is scheduled for Saturday, July 13. The 48-year-old Hopkins (53-6-2, 32 KO) will become the oldest fighter in history to make his initial title […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stub.com\/hq\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}