If the fight is as half as good as the press conference call, Bernard Hopkins and William Joppy should make for a memorable battle on December 13.

The wizened middleweight champion looks to make his 17th title defense against WBA mandatory (and "super" title holder) William Joppy, who describes Hopkins as "an ordinary Philadelphia fighter." Hopkins, meanwhile, says that Joppy's two performances against Felix Trinidad and Howard Eastman should give Joppy something to worry about facing him.

"On a scale of A to Z, I rate Joppy a C-," Hopkins said on a national conference call, also showing that his gift for the characteristic nonsequitor hasn't waned over the years. "It's a Roy Jones versus Antonio Tarver situation. I have nothing to gain by fighting him."

Hopkins says that he's done waiting for the 154-pound stars to mention his name, but that he does give Winky Wright props for pushing for a fight with him, and he implored assembled media on the call to ask Oscar De La Hoya, Shane Mosley, and Fernando Vargas when they're going to fight him.

"I been called old for the last three, four years. The old man's got no reflexes, got arthritis, and nobody's knocking on the door. I'm not upset about that to the point where it discourages me. I'll probably be the first fighter of age that young fighters fear," said Hopkins said, who turns 39 in January. "Winky Wright is the guy that's been calling me out. I would like for one of ya'll to ask one of those guys, ask them and put them on the spot. I want the word to be used. What about the 'old man'? I even want to skip past 39 and go straight to 40."

A fight with James Toney that fell through earlier this year was, according to Hopkins, because he found out his purse would be trimmed from $4.3 million to $3 million after Don King took his contractually allotted share. He says he's used to it, the arrows slung because of the fortunes he has disrupted; certainly nobody can argue that his performance Sept. 29, 2001 against Trinidad was something the powers that be planned on.

"I messed up $100 million in revenue that night with Trinidad-Jones and Trinidad-De La Hoya. I clearly think they would've done over 1.5 million dollars in buys, and that's not counting even the foreign TV revenues," Hopkins said. "I understand the aftershock of Sept. 29. A lot of those individuals that realized Bernard is right about that won't say it openly. There's two 9-11s that happened that year. That was the other 9-11 that happened that. It goes deeper than just that night. If you was there at the fight, it sounded like the president was assassinated afterward. I've never been in a situation where I've seen something great happen that night and it was so sad and so quiet."

He says he's expecting Joppy to make his last stand, after the former WBA champion was stopped in five rounds by Trinidad in the first bracket of the middleweight unification tournament.

"I'm looking for Joppy to put up a good account of himself. Don King won't be able to recycle Joppy again after this," he said.

Joppy, meanwhile, says that Hopkins is playing head games by inferring that he's in a no-win situation.

"Bernard plays a lot of mind games. He wants you to think he's not preparing. But he's training his ass off. He's training as hard as ever," Joppy said. "But Bernard Hopkins is just living off of one fight. He used my style to beat Trinidad. He gets one victory and that's what he's living off of. He's a coward, he's s__t, but the tables will turn Dec 13. Bernard says he's the most feared fighter on the planet, he says De La Hoya won't fight him, but he's got to realize that he's s__t. His name is not at that level. De La Hoya doesn't need him. He's not the most feared fighter on the planet. Hopkins never wanted to fight me, even before the middleweight tournament."

Joppy, like Hopkins, has had offers for fights that he passed on, including $125,000 to fight Joe Calzaghe in the U.K.

Hopkins says that he thinks De La Hoya won his rematch with Mosley, and that Roy Jones beat Antonio Tarver, because when you're fighting a star, you have to "take it to him."

"Against Trinidad, I won 9 of 12 rounds," he said. "Did I lay back on my heels? No, I went out and knocked him out."

The middleweight champion says he is more receptive to the input of blue-collar, working Joes than anyone else, including scribes and industry insiders who he's often at odds with.

"You can't write about my skills in the ring. Outside of the ring of the boxing world, you have a world of people out there and they can't speak out against their bosses," Hopkins said. "A guy will come up to me, a guy driving a trash truck. He'll tell me not to take the $3 million against Toney because the guy's basically a heavyweight. That encourages me. This guy's probably making less than $30,000 a year, probably got 3 or 4 kids, but he knows a bad deal when he sees one. So I get inspiration from the lowest people in the world. When you got the chickens, you don't have to look for no fox. I got a barn with three chickens in there, and I'm holding them hostage. The fox will come to me."

His goal is to make 20 defenses, but admittedly everything at this point is gravy, he says.

"I've been here since 1995," he said, implying his longevity is the best revenge.

Joppy, meanwhile, looks to redeem himself off his knockout loss to Trinidad. This time, he wants to perform as well on the big stage as he did in building up the bout.

"I got caught up in the hype against Trinidad," he said. "I'm going to stick to my game plan this time."

It'll be up to Hopkins to keep him from doing it.