Bernard Hopkins believes he has mental edge on Adonis Stevenson, Stevenson disagrees

Bernard Hopkins believes he already knows that he can get into the head of light heavyweight champion and WBC titleholder Adonis Stevenson, citing a moment in Los Angeles where he found a mental opneing.

David Greisman of BoxingScene.com has the video of Hopkins speaking with the media:

"I was in LA, we was on the podium. He had come out to one of the Golden Boy fights. I said, let's have fun. Come on up to the stage. He came up. I said, let's do a staredown, get everybody riled up. You know, shits and giggles. He had his sunglasses on. I said, take your sunglasses off. He took them off. It gives you a blueprint on how far I can go. It's up to him to say, whoa, that's too far. I got a starting point that I never should have got.

"With me, you supposed to kill that from the door. Somebody goes in your pocket, somebody assume something, you stop it right there because it can turn into a habit. And a habit becomes an every day scene -- you go to school, he's robbing you, he's taking your money. Like a bully in the neighborhood."

Adonis Stevenson was pretty quick to answer via his Facebook page:

First of all, you are far from being intimidating. The reason I took off my sun glasses was simply by respect because you asked me to do a face to face. You can talk all the crap that you want and say how you can get in people head and all that B.S but if you step in the ring with me I would simply destroy you!!! I don't care where you from and all the shit you talk because the only person who is impressed by that is yourself! I from Port -au-Prince Haiti and trust me where you from is a luxury compared at where I from. You call yourself an Alien but I can promise you that if I end up fighting you, you will come back on planet earth. There is nobody who s scare of you grandpa. I won't need a sport therapist to bring you back on planet earth so you can play with your grandchildren.

I have no idea if Hopkins is actually in Stevenson's head or has any sort of early mental advantage, but Stevenson certainly took the bait if there was bait to be taken.