Editing Bernard Hopkins (section)

== Middleweight Dominance ==

Hopkins's middleweight reign, spanning from 1995 to 2005, established records for title defenses and championship longevity. His 20 consecutive middleweight title defenses broke the record previously held by Carlos Monzon, while his ability to maintain championship form into his forties defied assumptions about athletic aging. The discipline he brought to training, diet, and lifestyle enabled performance levels that contemporaries could not maintain.<ref name="hauser"/>

His 2001 victory over Felix Trinidad, unifying the middleweight division by stopping the previously undefeated Puerto Rican champion, represented his career's peak achievement. The performance, executed before a hostile crowd in Madison Square Garden, demonstrated tactical mastery that experience had accumulated. The knockout, devastating when it came after Hopkins had controlled the fight, confirmed that his approach—patience followed by precision—could produce spectacular results.<ref name="rafael"/>

His reign's end, through loss to Jermain Taylor in 2005, initiated a second career chapter that would prove nearly as remarkable as the first. Rather than retiring as many expected, Hopkins moved to light heavyweight, where he would continue achieving at levels that defied his advancing age.<ref name="hauser"/>