Hopkins faces Ornelas on Wednesday: Does anyone care?

By David Lahr: 44-year-old light heavyweight Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KO’s) will be fighting Enrique Ornelas (29-5, 19 KO’s), a middleweight contender, on Wednesday night in what is in effect a tune-up bout at the Liacouras Center, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although Hopkins says “This is not a tune-up,” it’s hard to see it any other way than that. I mean any time a fighter selects a non champion opponent, not one but two divisions lower than him in weight, it has to be seen as a tune-up or stay busy fight. What else can it be called?

If Hopkins was considering a move back down to the middleweight division then I could see it as being a non tune-up fight, but that’s not what he’s doing. Hopkins’ plan is to fight Roy Jones Jr. next in March, and then try for a title shot against World Boxing Association heavyweight champion in late 2010. This is why the bout against Ornelas doesn’t make a lot of sense.

Why fight a slow plodding middleweight like Ornelas when you’re next opponent will be the much faster and bigger Roy Jones Jr,. and then the one after that, hopefully, David Haye. Hopkins might as well have not fought at all, because this fight isn’t a bout that will serve to prepare Hopkins in any way for a fight against Jones or Haye.

Ornelas is middleweight contender, but he’s not nearly the best fighter in that division. He was beaten by Marco Antonio Rubio 12 round decision only last year. This is the same Rubio who Kelly Pavlik toyed with for eight rounds before putting him away in the 9th earlier this year in a one-sided fight. Hopkins, in turn, totally dominated Pavlik, beating him by a lopsided 12 round decision in October 2008. As such, you can pretty much read between the lines that Ornelas, who as I stated lost to Rubio, will be way over his head in a fight with Hopkins. Another reason why I think Hopkins made a mistake in fighting Ornelas is that no one really knows who Ornelas is other than diehard boxing fans.

This is not the type of opponent that Hopkins should have gone after if he wanted to interest the boxing public and create the interest of the casual boxing fan. Hopkins should have at least gone after a top three or four contender. If Hopkins wanted to hand pick a opponent from a lower weight class like the middleweight division, why not take on an unbeaten middleweight like Daniel Jacobs or Gennady Golovkin rather than a fighter like Ornelas who was beaten by Rubio last year?

I think Hopkins’ choice of Ornelas has caused this fight to be all but ignored by the boxing public. Sure, there’s some people who might be interested in it, but not that many because of Hopkins’ choice of opponent.

At his age, Hopkins needs to be making every fight count and not taking on fighters two divisions below him. We’re already seeing boxers do that like Floyd Mayweather Jr. in his hand picking of lightweight Juan Manuel Marquez to fight, but I never thought that Hopkins would resort to doing this as well.

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