WATCH: Bernard Hopkins Gets Knocked Outside of the Ring in Last Career Fight | MMAWeekly.com

We all know that MMA fighters want to be pro wrestlers. But now we have boxers wanting to be pro wrestlers?

I mean, Bernard Hopkins took a bump Saturday night at the hands of Joe Smith Jr. that even the best bumpers would be proud of. Sure, it wasn’t a 450 splash onto a table, or giant fall off 25-foot tall steel cage, but this one was still admirable. This is the kind of stuff that made Mick Foley, as Cactus Jack, famous. Let’s observe the carnage:

Watch: @beastsmithjr knocks @THEREALBHOP out of the ring 53 seconds into round 8, ending the fight. #Final1 https://t.co/Pj2svLUlC9

— HBOboxing (@HBOboxing) December 18, 2016

Now if you are acting like a normal, civilized decent human being, what happened to Hopkins was totally unfortunate, a sad and embarrassing ending to a great career by a great man. Of course, we are going to remember the knockouts and brilliant fight performances, not this blip on the radar.

But if you are not that, and we at Hot Sauce like to keep it real like early 1990s hip-hop, then what happened to Hopkins was what you get when you try to fight when you are 51 years old. And we all thought CM Punk had a lot of nerve.

Hopkins spent a career slipping and sliding, dodging and weaving and counterpunching. He was never Roy Jones Jr. So when Hopkins hunched down, lower and lower, looking to spring up with a counter left hook, he learned what most 5-year-old boys already know: when you pull a rubber back to far, sometimes it breaks and flies backwards.

Hopkins meet backwards.

Despite what he said in his post-fight interview, Hopkins was already out when he hit the floor. He was not pushed. He took a very serious bump like a champ, even falling on his head. To be real, that was sad and should not have happened.

Fortunately, the executioner is OK, and also fortunately, he will never fight again. You can’t dare or challenge father time, unless you want to get put on your head by a younger, stronger fighter. And somewhere, Mick Foley is saying, “hey, don’t steal my gimmick.”

Follow Joshua Molina on Twitter: @JECMolina