Bernard Hopkins Jr., known as The Executioner (born January 15, 1965) is an American boxer. Hopkins is most widely known for his career in the middleweight class, where he held at least a piece of the championship in that class from 1994 until 2005. Having held the International Boxing Federation’s middleweight title first, he unified the titles of all three of boxing’s major sanctioning bodies in 2001 by winning the World Boxing Association and World Boxing Council titles.

In 2004 Hopkins, having added The Ring middleweight championship to his resume as well, became the first middleweight to have held all four of what are considered the major belts when he won the World Boxing Organization’s championship from Oscar De La Hoya.

Having defended a world middleweight title a record 20 times before losing the title in 2005, he is considered one of the greatest middleweight champions of all time. The Ring ranked him #3 on their list of the “10 Best Middleweight Title Holders of the Last 50 years.”

In addition to being an active boxer, Hopkins is also a minority partner with Golden Boy Promotions.