Will Hopkins Fight Paul Williams?

By Boxing News - 04/16/2009 - Comments

williams452353By Chris Williams: Paul Williams (37-1, 27 KOs) is reportedly interested in fighting former middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KOs). Hopkins, 44, doesn’t have any fights on schedule right at this minute, so it will be interesting to see if he bites at the chance to fight WBO light middleweight champion Williams. Hopkins has said that he doesn’t want to fight the younger talents in the sport, because he doesn’t want to take away the future stars in boxing.

However, he did a good job of stripping a lot of the hype away from previously unbeaten WBC/WBO middleweight Kelly Pavlik by easily defeating him by a 12-round unanimous decision in October 2008. Hopkins hasn’t shown any interest in fighting Chad Dawson, the young IBF light heavyweight champion who many boxing fans see as the best fighter in the division.

If Hopkins isn’t interested in facing Dawson for fear of taking away from the sport by possibly beating him, I suppose then he won’t be interested in facing Paul Williams either. It’s unfortunate, because this would be a great fight if Hopkins was interested in testing himself against a punching machine like Williams.

I can’t see Hopkins beating Williams now or ever, because of Williams’ huge volume of punches he tends to throw in all his bouts. Hopkins had big problems with Joe Calzaghe’s high punch volume and seemed to wear down under Calzaghe’s attacks in the second half of their April 2008 bout, which ended with Hopkins losing by a 12-round split decision.

Now, a year later and a year older, I wouldn’t like Hopkins’s chances against the youthful Williams. Hopkins will probably opt not to fight Williams and look for someone else, although I can’t imagine who could fit Hopkins’ prerequisites of an opponent if he doesn’t want to take away from the future of boxing.

Seems like a convenient excuse to make if you ask me. Tomasz Adamek, a fighter that Hopkins was recently interested in fighting, surely is a star in the boxing world. It wouldn’t help boxing if he’s beaten by the 44-year-old Hopkins, would it?

A loss to Hopkins would give Adamek another loss and would take away from his name value with boxing fans. Sure, Adamek is 32, but he’s got at least four years maybe more left in his boxing career. I can’t imagine Hopkins still being around by that time, so it’s probably not a good idea for him to fight Adamek either.

I think Hopkins needs to forget about worrying about the sport’s future and try to look to get the best fights he can, starting with Paul Williams, Chad Dawson or someone like Mikkel Kessler. I’d forget about Adamek, though, because he doesn’t have the same clout as Williams or Chad Dawson.

At 44, Hopkins already has a good excuse to be made if he’s beaten by Williams, Dawson or Kessler, so he should just go ahead and choose one of these fighters. If things don’t go right for him, he can point to his age or just claim that he schooled them.



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