AMERICA AT LARGE:The suspicion is that Bernard Hopkins' luck is about to run out, writes George Kimball

WHEN KELLY PAVLIK and Bernard Hopkins turned up in New York this week to promote Saturday night's fight in Atlantic City, at the suggestion of promoter Bob Arum I presented each of them with a copy of Four Kings, my account of the great middleweight fights of an earlier generation.

When I handed Hopkins his (see photograph), the response was quintessential B-Hop.

"How much," he asked, "is this going to cost me?"

Two decades have elapsed since he walked out the doors of Graterford Prison, and while the years have otherwise been kind to the 43-year-old Hopkins, time hasn't done much to allay his suspicion that the world is conspiring against him.

In New York two days ago, Hopkins chose to illustrate his point by describing himself as "the only world champion in the entire history of boxing to lose his title twice by split decisions".

Hmm, we were thinking. Weren't Sugar Ray Robinson's back-to-back losses to Paul Pender both split decisions? And for that matter, to the best of our recollection, only the first of Hopkins' losses to Jermain Taylor was a split decision. The second verdict was close, but unanimous.

Turns out B-Hop wasn't talking about Taylor II. The second perceived larceny to which he referred was last April's loss to Joe Calzaghe.

Hopkins lost a split decision that night, all right, but he didn't lose a title, because he didn't have one to lose. Beyond pride, the only trinket on offer was the gaudy but essentially meaningless The Ringmagazine belt. And, as Nate Campbell (who owns three of the recognised four world lightweight titles but not, for reasons we'll leave the magazine to explain, The Ring's) points out, "the Ringbelt is a trophy, but it's not a championship".

Pavlik has owned the world middleweight title for over a year, while Hopkins ruled the 160lb division for nearly a decade between 1996 and 2005. Although their bout is scheduled for the 12-round championship distance, neither Pavlik's title nor anyone else's will be at stake, and for that the promoters (Arum and Golden Boy chief executive Richard Schaefer) deserve some credit.

The undefeated Pavlik, who won the middleweight championship by stopping Taylor in September of last year, will be fighting in his third weight class this year when he meets Hopkins at a 170lb catchweight on Saturday. (His February rematch with Taylor was obliged to be at 164lb. In July, he defended the title against Wales' Gary Lockett, ostensibly ranked the world number one middleweight, according to the World Boxing Organisation. The less said about that fight, the better.)

In the television-driven world of contemporary boxing, promoters seem convinced the public need to believe a championship of some sort is at stake, and, if none happens to be on offer, they can often go find one - if not from The Ring, then from some fly-by-night outfit like the International Boxing Organisation.

(The IBO describes itself as "the champion of integrity", and boasts its ratings are "the world's most unbiased, objective ratings of boxers".

In its October ratings, Peter Manfredo Jr is listed 15th among super-middleweights, Sakio Bika eighth. Last week the IBO accepted a sanctioning fee to declare a November 13th bout between Manfredo and Bika a "world title fight".)

Three weeks after Pavlik meets Hopkins, Joe Calzaghe will face another fading legend, Roy Jones Jr, at Madison Square Garden in yet another bout slated to be contested at a light-heavyweight limit. The fight's promoters, in connivance with HBO, which will televise it, are advertising it as a "world title fight", even though no recognised world title will be at stake in that one, either.

For that we have The Ringto thank. While it should be apparent that what today's boxing world needs is fewer sanctioning bodies, not more of them, the erstwhile "Bible of Boxing" has proclaimed itself some sort of moral authority, dispensing championship belts like penny candy, often in defiance of all logic and historical precedent. And, despite The Ring'sclaim of impartiality, it also happens that the magazine today is owned, lock, stock and barrel, by Golden Boy Promotions, whose stable includes Bernard Hopkins.

Even in his heyday, during which he made a record 20 successful defences of the middleweight title, Hopkins felt he was denied due credit because his accomplishments were constantly compared to those of his predecessors, Carlos Monzon and Marvelous Marvin Hagler. By the time B-Hop came along, the middleweight title had been fragmented four ways, and while he won the IBF title in 1996, it was five years later he consolidated his claim to three belts by stopping Felix Trinidad, and it was 2004 before he added the fourth, knocking out Oscar De La Hoya to add the WBO title.

Thus, while Hagler held every recognised title on the planet in his 1980-1987 middleweight reign, Hopkins' position as an undisputed champion lasted just two fights. He successfully defended all four belts against Howard Eastman in 2005, but lost them all in the first Taylor fight later that year.

Hopkins compared his continuing presence on the world stage to that of two other recently-reincarnated, long-in-the-tooth athletes, Jets quarterback Brett Favre and cyclist Lance Armstrong.

"Whether history reflects it or not, I can tell you that for years I didn't get the chance to shine," Hopkins lamented the other day, "but here I am, 43 years old and still doing what I do best. And luck had nothing to do with it.

"You know, luck didn't get me out of the penitentiary without getting killed, stabbed, raped or whatever," said Bernard. "Luck didn't get me out of the ghetto and turn my life around. Hard work creates luck."

The suspicion is that Hopkins' luck is about to run out. The elder statesman is a 4 to 1 underdog against Pavlik on Saturday night. Should he win, one might assume that would green-light Pavlik to resume his consolidation of the middleweight division, but don't bet on it.

Pavlik trainer Jack Loew said on Tuesday that he and the champion are already "licking our chops" in anticipation of a Calzaghe victory over Jones. And you can probably take it to the bank that if and when the reigning middleweight champion and the long-ruling super-middleweight champion do collide, the networks and promoters will try to tell you that it is for the " Ringmagazine light-heavyweight championship of the world".

Nat Fleischer must be shuddering in his grave.