LAS VEGAS -- Boxing followers know all about Bernard Hopkins' loss to Roy Jones Jr. in 1993, when the two middleweight contenders fought for a vacant title.
Jones, of course, won a decision, and, after he relinquished the title to move up in weight, Hopkins captured the vacant belt in 1995.
Hopkins (46-2-1, 32 KOs) has ruled the division with an iron glove since, making a division-record 20 title defenses, including six of the undisputed championship. He's looking to make it 21 in a row against Jermain Taylor (23-0, 17 KOs) on Saturday night (HBO PPV, 9 ET) at the MGM Grand.
But what about that first, obscure loss that Hopkins suffered as a 23-year-old light heavyweight in his professional debut?
That loss, and a subsequent 15-month layoff, is what set Hopkins on the road to becoming a winner.
"If I would have won that fight? Probably not," Hopkins said, when asked if he would be where he is today had he won his debut. "I wasn't glad then that I lost, but 17 years later, I think that built character not to give up."
Although Hopkins is now widely recognized as the No. 1 fighter in the world, pound-for-pound, and as one of the greatest middleweight champions of all-time, he certainly had an inauspicious start to his pro career.
On Oct. 11, 1988, backed by manager Carmen Graziano and trainer "Slim" Jim Robinson, Hopkins lost a four-round majority decision -- scores: 39-38, 39-37 and 38-38 00 to Brooklyn's Clinton Mitchell, a New York Golden Gloves champion who was also making his professional debut. The bout was at the Resorts hotel in Atlantic City, N.J., and was on the undercard of an ESPN show headlined by welterweight John Meekins' 10-round decision against Saoul Mamby.
Little did anyone know at the time, but they were watching future greatness in that forgettable undercard bout.
"I don't know that there are many stories like his of making it from less than nothing," boxing historian Bert Sugar said. "To start as a light heavyweight, lose, take all that time off, come back as a middleweight and still be middleweight champion 17 years later and at the top of his game? It is an unprecedented success story."
Veteran matchmaker Ron Katz, who was used to make the fights for promoter Top Rank's weekly ESPN boxing series, remembers putting together Hopkins' ill-fated pro debut.
"I remember Carmen called me and said, 'Look, I've got this kid coming out of prison. His name is Bernard Hopkins and he's about 177 pounds,' " Katz said. "Carmen says to me, 'He's a very raw guy and he doesn't have much of an amateur background. Let's throw him in and see what he's got. I've heard good things about him in the gym. He's a strong kid and he's got some skills. Maybe we've got something here, let's give him a look.' I said, 'Perfect.' "
So Katz, known for making competitive fights, put Hopkins in with Mitchell, who had the more seasoned amateur background and was considered a better prospect.
"Hopkins was what I was told he was," Katz said. "He was tough guy, he made a good fight of it, but the other guy had more experience and skills, and outboxed Bernard."
Coincidentally, Katz was also the matchmaker for Hopkins' loss to Jones.
"When I see Bernard I still joke with him that I'm the only guy who can get him beat," Katz said with a laugh.
After the Mitchell fight, Katz said he talked to Hopkins in the dressing room.
"I remember going to Bernard and Carmen and telling them they made a good fight," Katz said. "I told Bernard, 'Don't give up on this, you've got some skills. You just went the distance with the Golden Gloves champ and didn't run too far behind him.' "
Many fighters lose their pro debut and go on to have good careers, but it is rare to lose that first fight and then reach the heights that Hopkins has.
Among the most notable boxers to lose in their debuts and still wind up in the Hall of Fame: Henry Armstrong, Benny Leonard and Billy Conn. Hopkins will someday be enshrined with that select group in Canastota, N.Y., but when Hopkins took the Mitchell fight, he was only a few months removed from serving a 56-month prison term for armed robbery and still heavy "from the prison food."
"I was fat but I could fight," Hopkins said.
While Mitchell would go on to finish his career 3-1-1, that loss set Hopkins on a path that would lead to one of the longest championship reigns in history.
"Losing to me, my first fight in 1988, was devastating to me," Hopkins said. "And to give you evidence of that devastation, I didn't fight for 15 months."
For more than a year following the loss to Mitchell, Hopkins did not box. He did not go to the gym. He did not watch fights on TV.
"I didn't want to see boxing, I didn't want to deal with boxing," Hopkins said.
Then, Hopkins said, "I decided to give it another try." He figured he needed to box again to help him stay out of trouble.
Although Hopkins had been staying clean while on parole, getting a job as a dishwasher at a Philadelphia hotel, he said he often felt the tug of the street.
"I had a lot of options to do wrong," he said.
His friends were still getting in trouble and selling drugs but he didn't want to get sucked back into that life and wind up back in prison.
Hopkins is fond of telling the story of how when he left the state penitentiary at Graterford, Pennsylvania's largest maximum security prison, the warden told him on his way out, "I'll be here waiting for you when you come back."
Those words rang in Hopkins' ears and he was determined to remain free.
"I was working at Penn Tower Hotel, going home with a few dollars in my pocket," Hopkins said. "And my friends had Jaguars, nice clothes, and there was the same peer pressure and environment I got paroled back to. I'm right back in the midst of it but smarter because I done the time. I know what the repercussions are because I've been there [to prison].
"But how many ex-convicts been there done that but fall right back into that trap? It was a struggle. The guy with the pitch fork in this ear, and the guy with the little wings in this ear."
So Hopkins decided to return to the gym.
"I wanted to give myself a chance. My goal was not to go back to prison," he said.
Hopkins hooked up with a small Philadelphia management team, Ring Warriors, to help him re-start his boxing career. The managers introduced him to trainer Bouie Fisher, who at the time was training heavyweight contender Jesse Ferguson.
"I told Bouie Fisher that I could fight. Everybody says that when they meet a trainer," Hopkins said. "I told him I'm 0-1 but I wanted to give it another shot. He said, 'You come in the gym every day and I will be here every day.' Fifteen years later, I've kept my word."
Hopkins said without that first loss to Mitchell, he would have continued fighting as a light heavyweight, which was wrong for him, and would have never met Fisher.
Fisher is the one who convinced Hopkins to drop down in weight from light heavyweight to middleweight.
"He was too big," Fisher said. "He was carrying too much weight. He had weight around his shoulders, legs, back. But he had a big heart. I saw a guy who was determined who really wanted to fight. After talking to him a couple of times and meeting with him over a couple of days, we got together. That was the beginning."
When Katz used Hopkins in a handful of early fights following his layoff, he noticed the difference immediately.
"I thought he was a different fighter," Katz said. "He was fighting at a lower weight and you could see he had learned how to fight. He always had the toughness but you could tell he absorbed so much in the gym that he became a good fighter.
"It might have been totally different had he won that first fight. He might have won a couple of fights, stayed with the people he was with and they might have thrown him in. He'd have won some, lost some. The key was him taking the time off, going down in weight and getting with right people and learning his craft in those Philadelphia gyms."
Sugar agreed.
"What he has done since losing his first fight is against every odd in the world," Sugar said. "What do you make the odds of Bernard Hopkins being undisputed champion at age 40 when you see him in his first fight? This off the boards. He's made something of himself."
Dan Rafael is the boxing writer for ESPN.com.