William Joppy has an extra incentive beyond
Bernard Hopkins’ undisputed middleweight crown when they square off in Don King’s “Night of the Undisputed Back-Back-to-Back championship Saturday, Dec.13 at the sold out Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City.

Title-wise, it’s a 3-1 deal for Joppy who is risking his WBA middleweight honors in challenging for Hopkins’
WBC, IBF 160-pound crown and the WBA Super Championship in the main event of HBO’s Pay-Per-View package starting at 8 P.M. ET

Hopkins, the latest in Philadelphia’s tradition of great world champions, is so confident his 17th defense will be a smashing success he has made a $50,000 side bet against Joppy’s $25,000 that he will win on a knockout.

Joppy. the pride of Silver Springs, Md., as a three-time former champion, was so excited about the wager he tried to get Hopkins to increase the jackpot.

There is only one way the 38-year-old triple champion can collect and that’s scoring a knockout. Anything less like Hopkins winning on a TKO, decision or it‘s a draw at the end of 12 rounds, Joppy gets an early Christmas for his family.

“Hopkins has two hands but I want you to count how many times he can touch me. There is no way he can touch me. If there is a knockout, I might be the one scoring it but I’m not worried about that. He like to tell people in Philly that he is the most feared fighter on the planet. People should give him respect for fighting me. If Bernard had a way out of this fight, he wouldn’t fight me. He never wanted to fight me and it wasn’t because of the middleweight tournament,” Joppy insisted.

“Hopkins has been living off of that knockout of Felix Trinidad two years ago, He’s done nothing before or since. Don King was right when he said Hopkins won the ‘lottery but he didn’t know how to cash the ticket.’ He talks about fighting Oscar De La Hoya in a mega fight. His name is not on that level. When he says Oscar doesn’t want to fight him, you and i know that it’s all business. De La Hoya doesn’t need him.”

Joppy, 33, with 34-2-1, 25 KOs log, says there is no strength to the rumor “Hopkins isn’t taking me seriously as a boxer.”

“No way that could happen. Bernard Hopkins plays a lot of mind games. He likes to do that because he wants you to think, or he wants me to think, that he is not preparing hard for this fight but believe me. He has been training his ass off in North Philly. I know he’s not but if he was looking past me to De La Hoya, he’s just wasting his time. Bernard just likes to talk like he did a while back on fighting James Toney. Toney went on to fight Evander Holyfield.

Joppy said it doesn’t bother him that Nevada’s odds-makers have Hopkins as a 5-1 favorite.

“I’ve been the underdog all my life and it doesn’t make any difference to me. As I said, that’s because of the way King’s tournament went, which Hopkins won. Hopkins is simply too old to beat me. There is no way his boxing skills are equal to mine and don’t forget he is a basic fighter and that means he’ll brawl. All the Philly boxers think they are a ‘Rocky’. That’s why I have to be prepared for whatever he brings to the table. Hopkins can be a dirty fighter, so you have to be ready.”

Joppy’s confidence of winning naturally makes the media mention “rematch” with the original still a week away.

“Beating Hopkins impressively which I intend to do, should open some doors to bigger and better things. We like a shot at De La Hoya or Fernando Vargas but so would everybody else. If there is a clause for a rematch in the contract, we’ll rematch the coward Hopkins. I say that because he will be looking for it then, and he’ll be calling my name all day.”

Joppy reportedly has had a great camp outside Washington, D.C., and has rehired his former trainer, Adrain Davis, and veteran cut man Cassius Greene as he readied for his first outing since Oct.10, 2002 when he went to Tokyo to TKO Naotaka Hozumi in 10 rounds.

“I’ve been training in Maryland practically my entire career. I don’t go away to camp any more, the camp thing is not for me. I feel better training at home among my people and my environment. I’ve been sparring with a lot of southpaws, getting good works from Julio De La Cruz, Andrew Council, and Richard Grant. I only went away twice and that was for Trinidad and Howard Eastman.”

Joppy doesn’t dwell on his ill-starred match when he lost the WBA160-pound title to Trinidad in King’s tournament May 12, 2001 in New York.

“I am much more experienced and better focused now. Some fight fans might think Hopkins will walk right through me because I lost to Trinidad and Bernard ruined Trinidad. Well, there’s no way that’s going to happen.

Going in with Trinidad, I got caught up in all the hype of the tournament,” Joppy recalled.

“There won’t be another fight with Trinidad but if we did, I sure as hell would fight him different. Hopkins had eliminated Keith Holmes in 12 with 18,235 people in Madison Square Garden, then I went on with Trinidad. I stayed right in front of him and didn’t give him any movement. In the first round, I shook the Puerto Rican with a right hand but he stayed erect. I went down as the first round closed but my head was clear in the two rounds. I was totally out of it and referee Arthur Mercante called it off in the fifth round.

King has had a string of contract disputes in dealing with the controversial Hopkins, but Joppy is pleased to report most of their negotiations have been amicable.

“Don has so many fighters, I think that’s the main reason because he seens to keep the guys in action and that’s why I signed,” Joppy reflected.

“I’m glad I’m being promoted by Don King. Otherwise, I don’t think I would have had a chance to get my championship back. This man is great for boxing,”

(Jack Welsh is a syndicated columnist headquartered in Las Vegas and a regular contributor to Ringsports.com and other fine websites)