BOXING Hopkins gives back, gets fit in New Orleans

The former middleweight champ is being trained by fitness guru Mackie Shilstone.
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NEW ORLEANS -- On Tuesday, Bernard Hopkins showed off the reason he is training in the city ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. The former middleweight champion, in a makeshift boxing gym set up in a banquet room at the Sheraton, signed autographs and philosophized about life with a group of urban schoolchildren whose lives, at risk in many ways before the storm, were tossed further.
"My life is no different than yours," said Hopkins, who was in prison by the time he was 17. "In boxing, you have to duck. Same in life. Duck the bad situations you see, duck the bad people trying to tell you wrong."
But the reasons Hopkins is in New Orleans are this makeshift gym at the Sheraton and an elfin man in a polo shirt and chinos who is helping him train.
Mackie Shilstone, fitness guru of New Orleans, is transforming Hopkins' body so he won't be outmuscled in his planned career-ending bout against the bigger, younger Antonio Tarver on June 10. After winning his titles at middleweight, Hopkins will fight his final battle at light-heavyweight -- his first bout in that weight class since his debut in 1988. That's 15 pounds heavier than his normal weigh-in.
Shilstone gets guys bigger but not fat or muscle-bound. In 1985, when skinny Michael Spinks hired Shilstone to help him bulk up and win the heavyweight belt from Larry Holmes, Spinks went to New Orleans. When Roy Jones Jr. needed to get big and fit in 2003 to beat John Ruiz for the heavyweight title, he went to New Orleans.
Basically, if you want Mackie, you go to Mackie.
"Mackie does not come cheap," said Hopkins, who rarely discounts the financial ramifications of a decision.
Connection
When Hopkins started talking to Shilstone about getting the boxer's 41-year-old body ready for Tarver, Shilstone mentioned that his wife, Sandy, is head of the New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corp. It came together from there.
"The Sheraton gave him a fabulous arrangement (Hopkins has a presidential suite upstairs from the gym), so it's a win-win," Shilstone said.
Even New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, who redeemed himself with his re-election last week, visited. Hopkins found parallels between his life story and Nagin's, just as he did with the kids.
"I told him, 'You're just like me in boxing,' Hopkins said. "They mocked us both. Said we were wrong. And we won."
Hopkins has been in New Orleans since late April, but this weekend he plans his first glimpse of the devastated Ninth Ward. Mostly he has been training in a new way, with a man who plans each day to the minute and to the calorie and says such things as, "We are as young as we are metabolically active."
Before daybreak, Hopkins and Shilstone run at Tulane University, sprinting 660s and 880s, distances designed to last more or less the duration of a boxing round. Shilstone runs alongside the boxer with a wristwatch that tracks Hopkins' heart rate and produces computer graphs.
"Every day is scripted," Shilstone said. "We do command and control; we control all the meals." Breakfast at 8. Lunch at 12:30. Dinner at 6:30. The Sheraton kitchen staff prepares special meals for Hopkins, including buffalo meat brought in from Whole Foods.
In the carpeted hotel "gym" that appears too clean for boxing (a room previously used for an art exhibit), a shiny new ring is surrounded by high-tech treadmills and Everlast punching bags (plus a five-foot-high photo of Tarver smiling, which Shilstone blew up for inspiration).
Regimen
Shilstone's regimen strengthens Hopkins' ring moves. He shadow-boxes wearing a harness that has hand grips attached to rubber cords. When he extends an arm, he's pulling a cord, the resistance forcing him to explode harder.
"It also shortens his punches, which makes them more effective," Shilstone said. In another exercise, Hopkins stands on a balance beam and slams a big ball into a wall with two hands, trying not to lose footing.
In the ring with boxing trainer Naazim Richardson, the righthanded Hopkins spars exclusively with larger men who fight lefthanded, as Tarver does. The sparring, at 3 p.m. daily, takes place behind closed doors. Hopkins is learning to move around -- and push around -- big southpaws, and to avoid or absorb their blows.
Exactly how is top-secret. Tarver, one of the best pound-for-pound boxers in the world, asked this week: "What will he do when he gets smashed with my right hook? He's never felt anything like that before."
Hopkins and his trainers -- underdogs after the dethroned champ's two 2005 losses to Jermain Taylor -- are just looking for any edge they can get.
"I have an entire file on Tarver," Shilstone said. "I know he was addicted to crack at age 19. I know he broke his jaw in 2000. I know he's a man who seeks what he calls respect and uses that to motivate himself. I think he is a dangerous person when he gets hurt or tired."
Does Tarver get tired?
"I think he's been the distance 19.4 percent of the time," Shilstone said.