What’s Next For Bernard Hopkins

Light heayweight Bernard Hopkins (48-4, 32 KOs) is seemingly sitting on top of the world right now of his recent 12-round unanimous decision victory over Ronald “Winky” Wright on July 21st at the Mandalay Bay, in Las Vegas, Nevada. The win was nothing short of spectacular, not the least of which because of his advanced age (42-years old), and with the added fact that he hadn’t fought in over a year.

Even then, Hopkins had pulled off another shocking upset by beating then light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver by 12-round unanimous decision on June 2006. So with back to back excellent performances by Hopkins, what can he do to top this? In terms of the light heavyweight division, there’s not a lot of options for exciting (read: big-money fights) for Hopkins because the the two bst light heavyweights in the division = Chad Dawson and Zsolt Erdei - are little known by most boxing fans, which would essentially rule out any possibility of a big PPV fight with either of them. Roy Jones Jr., another possibility at light heavyweight, doesn’t appear to be the slightest bit interested in fighting Hopkins, instead rumored be expressing a desire to fight either Felix Trinidad or Zsolt Erdei.

Based on this, it would seem as if Hopkins will have to move down to either 168, the super middleweight division, where he might get lucky and land a fight with the winner of Joe Calzaghe-Mikkel Kessler or possibly Jermaine Taylor-Kelly Pavlik winner. I have doubts, though, that Hopkins would want to take a chance at fighting Taylor again, as he’s already been beaten twice by him, and he’s shown in both instances that he has problems with Taylor’s fast hands. The ideal fight, however, would clearly be either Pavlik or Calzaghe, both of which would bring in huge PPV numbers. However, both fighters have tough bouts ahead of them and nothing is a given that they’ll win collectively.