Want to make a professional boxer mad, for some weird reason? All you need to do is suggest he’s on performance-enhancing drugs.
That was the lesson learned by boxer Jean Pascal this week, who saw his once and future opponent Bernard Hopkins threaten to kill him in the ring for accusations Pascal made about Hopkins and PEDS.
In a press conference announcing the pair’s upcoming heavyweight championship rematch on Monday, Hopkins was livid. “When a guy says I’m eating some kind of candy…that makes me angry,” he said. “Don’t be surprised if he dies in the ring on May 21. Don’t be surprised if I kill him. That’s how angry I am.”
In a second press conference, held Tuesday the Times Square Planet Hollywood, the two men aggressively stared each other down as cameras flashed.
Hopkins, 46, and Pascal, 28, previously fought a 12-round draw in Quebec last December, a result widely considered embarrassing to the local Pascal. Afterward, Pascal intimated that Hopkins had taken performance-enhancing drugs, because of the latter’s uncharacteristic aggressiveness in the bout.
