At 48, Bernard Hopkins is the “oldest fighter in boxing history to win a world title”:
He also [broke that record] in 2011, at age 46, when he traveled to then-light heavyweight champion Jean Pascal’s turf in Montreal for a rematch of a controversial draw and outpointed him to break heavyweight legend George Foreman’s record. In beating [Karo] Murat [on October 26, in a fight promoted in the above video], Hopkins added to his historic legacy by becoming the oldest fighter to defend a world title, winning easily on the scorecards, 119-108, 119-108 and 117-110.
In response to Hopkins’ latest win, Kelefa Sanneh considers how the industry treats aging fighters:
When fans try to shame veterans like [James] Toney and [Shane] Mosley into retirement, they often speak the language of concern: they don’t want to see a boxer get injured or worse; they don’t want to hear people saying, after a catastrophic fight, that the tragedy was predictable. But boxing is predictably tragic; if we truly didn’t want to see fighters get injured, we wouldn’t watch them fight. When fans cheer Hopkins, hitting and getting hit in the twelfth round, even when he probably knows he has already won, they say they admire his bravery. … Some fans play doctor, scrutinizing interviews for signs of altered speech, and yet there’s something perverse about urging a man to fight until he’s damaged, then urging him to stop.
The Dish 