Yoel Romero hopes to follow in the footsteps of Bernard Hopkins and fight into his 50s

Bellator light heavyweight contender Yoel Romero says that he hopes to follow in the footsteps of Bernard Hopkins and fight into his 50s.

Hopkins last competed in 2016 when he was 51 years old, and Romero hopes to follow in his footsteps. Now 44 years old, Romero will be making his debut for Bellator this Saturday night when he takes on fellow former UFC fighter Phil Davis. Romero has not fought in over a year since a loss to UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and given that he is already 44 and has battled health problems that delayed his Bellator debut, one would think that he maybe doesn’t have much time left in this sport. However, as far as Romero goes, he still has several good years left in him. In fact, he believes he can fight in his 50s.

“I would like to surpass Bernard Hopkins,” Romero told Bleacher Report’s Tom Taylor in regards to how long he would like to keep on competing for.

Of course, it’s easy to say that someone wants to do something for a long period of time, but it will ultimately depend on if Romero is able to get back into the win column. After losing the last three fights of his UFC career, Romero enters Bellator with no momentum. A big win over Davis would certainly go a long way to proving that Romero has what it takes in him to continue fighting until his 50s, but a loss would be four in a row. Either way, Romero remains confident that he has all the skills necessary to continue competing at a high level at this point in his life and career. We shall see how the Davis fight plays out.

Do you want to see Yoel Romero fight into his 50s just as Bernard Hopkins did?