Unique boxer Hopkins makes his own kind of music

LAS VEGAS — For the fight of his life, Bernard Hopkins chose ring music to say something about his life.

When he enters the ring Saturday night to face Oscar De La Hoya, it won’t be to pulsating rap. Instead, Frank Sinatra will be crooning “My Way.”

“I’m coming out with Old Blue Eyes,” Hopkins said. “It’s going to be a heck of a statement.”

The choice of music is fitting. If any boxer has done things his way, it’s Hopkins.

He has spent his career battling promoters, managers, agents and anyone else he suspects might have it out for him. His talent is unquestioned, but it seemed Hopkins was destined to squander his opportunity to make really big money.

Then De La Hoya came calling, and changed everything. Hopkins believes he has a right to feel vindicated.

“I said a long time ago that I would be patient, but nobody could understand my vision,” the 39-year-old fighter said. Where Hopkins is at is on the verge of a payday that dwarfs anything he has made in his remarkable career. Fighting for $300,000 a few months ago, he could make as much as $15 million against De La Hoya.

Not bad for a fighter who came out of prison to lose his first fight and whom promoter Don King once said “won the lottery but threw away the ticket” after beating Felix Trinidad.

“I’ve come a long way from sitting in a 5-by-5 cell with no gold medal, no big sponsor contract, no big promoter,” Hopkins said. “I’m the hungriest fighter in the world right now.”