Big Interview With Howard Eastman

They're calling it Execution Day in the city of dreams. Bernard "The Executioner" Hopkins, regarded by many as the world's best pound-for-pound fighter and one of the greatest middleweights in boxing history, will make an unprecedented 20th successive defence of his undisputed title in Los Angeles on Saturday.

Hopkins has not lost a fight for 12 years. He is revered and feared for his relentless preparation and ferocious appetite for battle. His bleak perspective has barely shifted since the day he was released back into a Philadelphia ghetto after spending five years in jail for an armed robbery he committed at the age of 17.

"Tough times don't always last," Hopkins said last month, "but tough men do. I am the toughest and hardest fighter out there. This poor guy ain't got a prayer. He's in for a long and terrible night."

The "poor guy" is called Howard Eastman. He lives in Deptford and loves budgies and parrots, cockatoos and lovebirds because "their whistles are like opera to me. I'm captivated by their beauty."

Eastman is an eccentric who, when everyone ignored him, decided to remarket himself as a fighter by dying his hair and beard "old man white". He ended up looking like a 93-year-old professor of the ring. The strangeness does not even begin there. Years earlier, while boxing as an amateur, Eastman was a homeless vagabond who used to ride the Northern Line to stay warm at night before being forced back out on to the freezing London streets, where he would shiver in his sleep among rubbish bags. He survived to emerge as the most assured and downright prickly professional fighter in Britain. He now wants to become a preacher.

Eastman would have one hell of a story to sell to Hollywood if, somehow, he could beat Hopkins in LA. He just needs Denzel Washington to show up at ringside and decide that this miraculous saga deserves to be acted out on the glittering screen. There are only two problems, though - Eastman has to overcome Hopkins and then, even more improbably, soften his spiky character when a smoothie like Washington dares encroach on his time.

The first seems the easier task - for fighting comes more naturally to him than schmoozing. A belligerent Eastman astonished the US boxing media by insisting that he, rather than the formidable champion who holds all four belts peddled by the rival WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO organisations, was the world's best fighter. He caused further uproar by promising to knock out Hopkins inside five rounds.

"Have you been on holiday?" Eastman barks when I ask if he really planned to make such an outrageous prediction when he left Deptford for his training camp in Miami.

"No," I say in bemusement. "I just wondered how you plan to dominate Hopkins."

"Do your homework," Eastman instructs.

Eastman - a big, strong former European middleweight champion - is a crisp and accurate puncher who moves smoothly around the ring. He has sparred with great and very good fighters - from Thomas Hearns to Joe Calzaghe - who all praised his heavy-handed hitting. He has recorded 32 knockouts since turning pro in 1994. But in the biggest challenge of his 41-fight career, a WBA title bout against William Joppy in Las Vegas in 2001, Eastman suffered his only loss. It was, at least, controversial. Fans booed the decision only a few minutes after Eastman had knocked down Joppy in the last round. But, until then, Eastman had failed to impose himself.

"I didn't execute what I needed to do. But I learnt a lot that night. You have to get used to fighting a big-name American for the world title in their own backyard. After that experience I'm prepared for Hopkins."

Yet it's difficult to forget that in December 2003, in contrast to Eastman, Hopkins battered Joppy for an easy points victory. Hopkins has also crushed far more famous rivals like Félix Trinidad and Oscar de la Hoya. Five months ago a single body punch from Hopkins left the Golden Boy writhing on the canvas. Only the fact that De la Hoya was moving up in weight can partially dim the magnitude of that 19th title defence.

Hopkins had thirsted after a perfect 20 for years. The swaggering Executioner loves to remind us that the great Carlos Monzón and Marvin Hagler, the two middleweight icons who come closest to his record with their respective 14 and 12 defences, now lag behind him.

"I don't know nothing about that," Eastman counters. "Ask Hopkins."

Yet even Hopkins, who turned 40 last month, cannot go on forever. After the hype surrounding his battle with De la Hoya he might also underestimate his unheralded challenger from London.

"I have no idea what goes on in Hopkins's head," Eastman snaps.

He is not made much happier by the suggestion that, despite his forecast, he is set for the most arduous test of his career.

"Tax?" he snorts. "Are you an accountant?"

"Test," I say testily. "Hopkins looks pretty testing to me."

"I doubt it. If you study boxing and did your homework you would see my hardest test was in my last fight."

"You beat a Nigerian journeyman called Jerry Elliott in Nottingham," I say in an imitation of the class nerd.

"That guy was a heavyweight, man. I'm a middleweight. Figure it out. I was training to fight a middleweight and then at the last minute they put in a replacement. That guy was a heavyweight and he wasn't no bum. That's what you call a test."

Though the 34-year-old Eastman highlights his unbreakable religious faith, I still wonder how he will feel in those terrifying last few moments before climbing alone into the ring against Hopkins.

"Well, I am a man. We all suffer with nerves. Every fighter does. We get them butterflies flitting in the stomach. It's how we deal with them that counts.

"You have to look at boxing and life separately but each can help you in the other. By the grace of God I survived some bad times. There are things I've learnt in boxing that helped me outside the ring and some of my past hardship can help me against Hopkins. I can dig deep inside and know I can withstand a lot."

When he was 17, having arrived with his father and two brothers from Guyana two years earlier, Eastman was forced out of the family home off the Wandsworth Road. His father, Arnold, an aeronautical engineer, had had enough of his son's ill discipline. He kicked Howard out on to the street.

It sounds like an unbearably cruel reaction to some adolescent rebellion in a strange country. Yet, curiously, Eastman is far more serene while reflecting on his harsh past than when fielding more mundane boxing questions.

"I was homeless a long time. It made me grow up fast. I been independent ever since - for 17 years. I don't want to dwell on it but those London streets were cold and hard. The cold got in your bones. And I had nowhere to go but riding that train and sleeping with bins. Time moved slow. You can go right down when you're homeless. You can drink to escape. You can go crazy. I did none of that."

I'm struck most by the fact that Eastman, in the midst of such adversity, kept boxing on amateur bills. Having discovered his talent for fighting as a bullied schoolboy who eventually knocked down those who had once taunted him, Eastman was not about to be diverted from the ring by mere homelessness.

While admiring his sheer will, I allude to a past interview where he is quoted as saying he twice fought an accomplished amateur called Timmy Taylor during that horrendous time.

"Do your homework!" Eastman reminds me. "I fought Timmy Taylor once."

"I guess you won?" I suggest flatteringly, almost calling him "sir" in the process.

"Still on holiday?" Eastman chides. "I was homeless. I lost because of that reason."

Surely Eastman still feels anger towards his father. "No, man. Anger won't do me good. I pray a lot and God showed me how to forgive. My father had his reasons and he supports me in everything. Looking back I see this is one of the reasons I'm so close to God now. There had to be some kind of intervention to bring me to this point - where I'm on the verge of fulfilling my boyhood pugilistic dream."

"Pugilistic" is a nice, if arcane, word - but it has Chris Eubank written all over it. How much did Eastman look up to Eubank and, besides swapping a monocle for a geriatric beard, settle on a similarly haughty image?

"Where have you been?" Eastman asks. "That was just a publicity stunt - I've given up the white beard."

"I had noticed but the image sticks in my head. It always made me think of Eubank . . ."

"As a kid I watched Eubank, [Nigel] Benn and [Michael] Watson on TV. I didn't favour any of them but when it comes to the pugilistic department they were remarkable in different ways. I respected them. But I didn't copy anyone."

Eastman snorts more cogently than Eubank ever did when asked if Hopkins and the US fight cognoscenti respect him. "I got no idea. I'm not seeking respect."

He is interested, however, in the WBC middleweight title at stake on Saturday night. In a typically obtuse example of boxing politics Hopkins's three additional belts will not be contested. The IBF, WBA and WBO organisations have ordered Hopkins to face their different mandatory contenders as a way of earning yet more sanctioning fees.

Hopkins, incredibly, is the only current undisputed champion across boxing's myriad divisions and plethora of meaningless trinkets. Being even more opinionated than Eastman he has done it all on his own - refusing to sell himself to promoters like Don King or Bob Arum. Significantly his "Execution Day" defence against Eastman is being staged by his last victim in the ring - Oscar de la Hoya and his Golden Boy promotional outfit, who have just appointed Hopkins as their east coast president.

"You've got to admire Hopkins . . ."

"I only admire God, but I respect Hopkins. It's a tremendous feat. He's worked hard for a long time."

Eastman laughs mysteriously when asked why, unlike Hopkins, his defiant nature has not worked the same kind of magic in this country. One answer is that he is nowhere near as likeable as the amusing and garrulous Executioner - and he has yet to face the calibre of opponent Hopkins has defeated so consistently. Eastman is also ambivalent towards the whole nebulous concept of success. Whether refusing to play the accepted game with promoters and the media or sometimes simply "switching off" during a fight, as he did against Joppy, Eastman lacks Hopkins's concentrated focus. He seems to care less about his reputation both in and outside the ring.

"I have my own theory," Eastman says. "I was in the wrong place at the wrong time with people who didn't have my best interests at heart. God knows this is how it's supposed to be for me."

He will need some divine inspiration on Saturday - though any Hollywood mogul or mover who fancies turning the Howard Eastman story into a glitzy story of triumph against all odds will need more luck when approaching the man himself. Even Denzel Washington had better have done his homework and not been on holiday recently.

"You got it now," Eastman sighs. "God bless you."