MONTREAL — Bernard Hopkins became the oldest champion in boxing history Saturday night by winning a unanimous decision against Canadian Jean Pascal to claim Pascal's WBC title belt before a disbelieving, record Canadian indoor crowd of 17,560 at the Bell Centre here.
Hopkins, who turned 46 in January, eclipsed the record set in 1994 by George Foreman, who knocked out Michael Moorer in the 10th round to win the heavyweight title when he was 45. Hopkins and Pascal started out slow, but their dislike for each other showed through as the fight wore on. Both fighters taunted each other repeatedly. Hopkins stuck his tongue out at Pascal several times and even came out before the seventh round doing pushups to prove he was not tired. The tongue-wagging by Hopkins seemed to touch a nerve in Pascal, who responded by charging like a bull at Hopkins, who was able to avoid most of the punches and appeared to enjoy the process.
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